


wash the blood from your bony fingers

by newsbypostcard



Series: Blood From Bony Fingers [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Angst, Heteronormativity, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Identity, M/M, Pining, Politics, Quantum Mechanics, Slow Burn, Smoking, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-09 04:15:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 63,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8875549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newsbypostcard/pseuds/newsbypostcard
Summary: When a mission against Hydra goes south and Steve is found unconscious, 120 lbs. and barely five feet tall, Bucky's pretty sure he's gonna lose his mind.It somehow only gets worse when Steve wakes up and is the exact furious spitfire Bucky remembers, taken right out of 1936.It's not just Steve stressing him out. It's tiptoeing around the Hydra connections among them out of fear that Steve will reject him. It's the way Natasha alternates between flirting with Steve and patronizing him, and the way Bucky feels himself doing the same. It's the tech hacks, the Hydra infiltrations, the way all this feels fucking hopeless without Steve around to remind them to take it one day at a time. It's dodging all the questions about Bucky's goddamned arm.He's just fucking tired of being haunted by his past. For all Steve is intolerably familiar to him, he's also innocent enough to remind Bucky of everything they've lost.





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> This began as your basic de-aging trope and turned into a romp through politics and quantum physics and then... biology, somehow? I did a great deal of very pedestrian science research to try to make this plot even _somewhat_ coherent with reality, but please note that, as I'm a liberal arts major, there are gross oversimplifications and very likely gross errors in the science as well. Endless, endless thanks to [Mari](http://archiveofourown.org/users/starstrung) for deciphering my nonsense questions about what the fuck a cell even is and giving me exactly the information I needed to make the biology portions even a _little_ bit consistent with reality.
> 
> I was flexible with what I assume practices in a hospital actually are, with apologies. I also sacrificed realistic wait times for the sake of plot. 
> 
> De-aging is a trope I never in my LIFE thought I would write, but please note that everyone is over 18.
> 
> This fic is set in 2018. I've run a thought experiment that assumes the Avengers are fighting for justice for the American people in the context of a mobilized autocratic government, just for funsies. Sam, Steve, and Bucky share the duties of Captain America. Politics do not play a significant role in this fic, but they're not invisible either.

  


"He is _fine_."

From a certain point of view, Sam has a point. Steve isn't actually even injured. Apart from his usual ailments and an unexplained bout of unconsciousness, he's just as Bucky remembers him.

From 1935.

"He is not," Bucky growls back, throwing an arm behind him, " _fine._ "

The man in the hospital bed is, unmistakably, Steve Rogers -- all 5'4" of him. Sam and Romanov had done their share of standing around as Bucky had taken him out of there, exchanging looks and making theories about decoys, but Bucky had known it was Steve from the second he'd seen him. Steve had recognized Bucky, too, gritting Bucky's name out like it was the only word he could think of; but then he'd barely had time enough to throw trusting hands around Bucky's neck before he'd passed out in his arms.

Bucky definitely can't explain how this happened, but there's no mistaking the wheeze in his chest. That's Skinny Steve Rogers, all right. Bucky'd bet his life on it.

"We have to put him back," Bucky says, torn between glowering and apprehensive. 

Sam blinks around the hospital room, trying to stop his eyes from rolling. "Obviously we're not gonna leave him like this."

"You don't understand."

"I do," Sam says. "He doesn't look right, and more than that, he doesn't sound right. Serum probably saved his life, right?"

Bucky only clenches his jaw in reply.

"Well, he's not gonna die tomorrow. We'll get on a solution. You're not alone in this, all right? We all want Steve back." 

The compassion is awful. Bucky narrows his eyes at him. 

Sam gets the hint. "Try to relax, would you? God only knows when he's gonna wake up. He's gonna need you to explain all this to him. I've seen you milling in and out of here like you don't know where to be, just sit the hell down for once. You ever try meditation?"

"Is this the time to get smart?"

"You wouldn't know," Sam says, then acquiesces to the need to roll his eyes when Bucky scowls at him in latent fury. "I'm trying to help, all right?" He leans out the doorway. "You figure out what you're gonna tell the doctor yet?"

"No."

"Better think fast." Sam points down the hall.

Bucky stares. "Get rid of him."

"You do know this is a hospital, right?"

"Get rid of him, _please._ "

"I'm not just being an asshole, Barnes. You wanna get Steve treated or not?"

Bucky paces and clenches a hand in his hair. "Fine," he says. "I totally got this."

The doctor walks in and Bucky does not, in fact, even remotely got this.

"I'm Dr. Sanchez," he says, looking from Steve to Bucky.

"I'm -- uh -- Barnes. James. I go by Barnes." He points at Sam. "Sam Wilson."

"And this is Mr. Jones," says the doctor.

Bucky blinks. "Yeah. Right. Steve Jones."

The doctor leafs through the charts, then looks up at Bucky. "He took a blow to the head?"

"He took a blow. Not sure where."

"You brought him in?"

"Yeah. He was already -- uh, well, he was drifting into unconsciousness when I found him."

"Any clue what happened?"

 _Weird mutant time-travel shit?_ "No." 

In the background, Sam waves a hand as though encouraging him to keep talking. 

"He's tough, but he doesn't know his own limits," Bucky says. "Thought it best to bring him in given his pre-existing conditions."

"Such as?"

"Uh." Bucky clears his throat. "Heart… beats weird."

"Arrhythmia or tachycardia?"

"Fuck if I know, we don't really talk about it. It -- palpitates?"

The doctor nods. "Probably a tachycardia then, we'll run an ECG. Anything else?"

"He's asthmatic; doesn't run exactly well, though don't think that stops him. Sometimes his ears… plug. I don't know, he gets a lot of ear infections? He gets pneumonia like twice a year."

"Ever been hospitalized for it?"

"Loads."

"Where?"

Bucky stares. "Around."

"You're saying you don't know."

"That's -- a better way to put it, sure."

"And you're his husband."

Bucky narrows his eyes in the course of trying not to show his shock. "Partner. Common law."

"How long have you been together?"

Another pause, too long. "Depends."

" _Depends?_ "

He takes a steadying breath. "On who you ask. We, um…"

Like the world's most sarcastic guardian angel, Sam steps forward. "Forgive him," he tells the doctor with a smile. "Steve gets into a lot of trouble and Barnes gets protective and stupid, and not always in that order."

The doctor looks at him. "You're a friend?"

"Of Steve's," Sam says pointedly. Bucky rolls his eyes. "I was there when we found him. It looked to _me_ like Steve was experiencing some bizarre amnesia. Can't explain it, but he looked at Barnes like he didn't realize it was 2018. _Isn't that right,_ " Sam hisses, placing pressure on Bucky's shoulder.

Bucky clenches his teeth. "That's what I was trying to say."

"They've been together for -- what, six, seven years?"

"Something like that. Who can keep track?"

"Steve was ebbing in and out of consciousness, kept mentioning events that haven't been relevant for a long time," Sam adds. "Super weird."

"He's stuck in the past, is what you're saying." Sanchez shines a light into Steve's eye.

"More than you know," Bucky mutters.

"More or less," Sam says, over him.

"Must've been some blow."

"You're telling me," Bucky says.

"All right, well, we'll run a head CT while we're at it. I assume you have insurance?"

Bucky hesitates. "We've actually been out of the country for the better part of the last year, but money's not a problem. Bill me direct."

Sanchez nods. "Hang tight. It won't be long."

Bucky physically deflates under Sam's hand as Sanchez leaves. "Thanks."

"Sure. Think you could cut down on the dry remarks about the situation? Might benefit you a little to sound like you know what the hell's going on."

A beat, then -- "No."

"Okay," Sam says, eyelids flickering. "That's one way to approach the situation."

Natasha chooses this moment to poke her head in the door. She looks a little worse for the wear, but not bad for someone recently electrocuted. "Hey."

"Hey." Bucky nods. "How you doing?"

"No harm, no foul," she says, breathy. "How's Steve?"

Bucky throws a frustrated gesture behind him. "You find the guy?"

She shakes her head grimly. "No trail."

" _How?_ "

Natasha shrugs. "The whole place was cleared out when we went back in. They move fast."

"Fuck," Bucky says, and runs his hands through his hair.

"Hey," Natasha says. "He seems okay for now."

"He's _dying._ "

"Right, but… a lot slower than usual, if you think about it."

Bucky purses his lips at her in tacit fury.

Natasha turns to Sam. "Still tense, huh?"

Sam's barely paying attention, craning to look at Steve. "Mm."

Natasha presses her fingers to her forehead. "You're both gonna be hopeless this whole mission, aren't you?"

"Who's hopeless?" they say at once, with varying degrees of venom.

"Okay." Natasha raises her hands and backs out of the room. "I'm gonna go see what I can dig up on this. Call me if he wakes up."

" _When,_ " Bucky shouts after her. " _When_ he wakes up."

"That's what I meant!"

He does not, weirdly, feel all that reassured.

  


  


* * *

  


  


Bucky breaks into the hospital mere seconds after he's been kicked out. It's not any easier being next to Steve afterhours, but he can't fathom being anywhere else. He _definitely_ doesn't want to go back to an empty home, and he's not about to leave Steve here to fend for himself in the 21st century. Especially not if Hydra might show up to finish the job now that he's only one step removed from helpless.

He just has no idea when Steve's body's actually regressed to. Whether... 

_"Bucky?" Steve had said, eyes trying to focus. "Why do you look like--"_

He has no goddamn idea about any of this.

Bucky paces. He sits in the corner, head in hands. He replies with strategically placed middle finger emojis to Wilson's texts asking if he's broken back into the hospital already. He leans down so close to Steve, so determined to hear the air in his lungs, that he thinks he might be able to count the pores on his forehead. 

Eventually, by some miracle, he must fall asleep, arms crossed over his chest.

This is how Bucky jolts awake to see Steve blinking at him, groggy as he's ever been.

Bucky tenses. For a long, aching moment, all they do is stare at each other. Sunlight streams in through the windows; dust hangs in the air. 

"Bucky?" Steve asks.

_Standing on a bridge in D.C.; Steve dropping his guard, aggression melted out of him, incredulity etched on every pore._

_"Bucky?"_

Bucky breathes in and swallows, and lets go of the chair. 

"Hey, Steve." He leans forward onto his knees, into surreality. "How you feeling?"

Steve's frowning at him, mouth agape. "What the hell happened to _you_?"

"Uh…" Bucky looks around the room; sees Sam standing in the far corner, watching all this unfold with benign interest. "Listen, it's a long story. You thirsty? You gotta be thirsty."

"I'm not thirsty," Steve says, agitation filling him, "I'm--"

But then his voice gives out, ground down from hours breathing through his mouth in unconsciousness. Bucky thinks he'd find it an improvement if he wasn't so goddamn relieved to hear him talk. 

He launches himself out of the chair, waving Sam away from the water pitcher. "Listen, enough interrogating me when you're the one who landed himself in the hospital. Answer my question, would you? You got any pain, anything we should be addressing before we try to talk?"

Steve parts his lips to speak, but still doesn't manage it; he starts to cough, instead, hacking into the bony elbow thrown over his mouth.

"Get it all out, Rogers." He reaches within himself and finds that Brooklyn accent, buried but not forgotten; tries to remember how they used to talk. It's easier than he expects, but it still sounds wrong to him. He's sure he's putting it on too thick. "You took quite a blow out there. I was starting to get worried." 

He turns around and passes the water glass to Steve. His hands are steady. Steve's are so small. 

"You, worried?" Steve says as he resurfaces. "Say it ain't so."

"Shouldn't be throwing yourself into fights all the time. Aren't I always telling you that?"

"You--" Steve's head cocks to the side, searching. "You get in enough fights your own damn self. Or…"

The sentence is consumed by Steve's perplexion. For all Bucky's trying to make this transition easier, Steve's too smart for his own damn good.

Bucky pans desperately around for a distraction. "Listen, I want you to meet someone. This is my pal Sam Wilson. You might've seen him before, stop me if this seems familiar."

Sam hangs back and studies Steve's face, stepping forward only when he sees no recognition. "How's it going?"

"Been better," Steve says, taking the hand Sam offers. Bucky watches alarm flash fleeting across Sam's face as he takes Steve's tiny fingers into his palm. "Nice to meet you. Sorry it's not under better circumstances."

"Same here. Good to see you awake."

"Nice of you to show up for…" His eyes flit to Bucky again, narrow and concerned. "Bucky."

"Sam and me, we work together," Bucky says.

"Funny uniform," Steve remarks.

Bucky sits down hard, bunching his fists against his lips. 

"You gonna tell me what this is all about?" Steve looks between them, smile playing at his lips. He must, Bucky realizes, think he's being pranked.

"You think too much," Bucky tells him. "Anyone ever tell you that?"

"We can't all be as dumb as you, Buck. Society'd fall apart."

It sounds right and wrong all at once. Bucky smiles, apprehensive and helplessly fond. "Say, Steve. What year do you think it is?"

"1936."

"Okay," Bucky says, swallowing against his shock. "Well, listen. It's not so much 1936 anymore."

"Okay, Bucky." Seriousness sets back in him all at once as his eye catches on something new. "Hey, what's wrong with your hand?"

Bucky tucks his arm away and tries for a smile. "You've been asleep a while, Steve." When he takes in a breath, there's a shake in his lungs. "It hasn't been 1936 for a long time."

  


  


* * *

  


  


Steve takes it all in stride, considering.

" _Two thousand_ and _eighteen_?"

"Yup."

"And this happened because -- war broke out."

"That's where it starts."

"Then we both enlisted." He points at Bucky. " _You_ enlisted."

Bucky winces. "In a manner of speaking."

"And we got 'frozen' in 'the ice' in the middle of all this… war business."

"Separately, but yes."

"And you woke up...?"

It's a question Bucky hasn't answered yet. "Few years ago."

"And _I_ woke up 82 years in the future."

Bucky hesitates. "Not quite."

Steve's expression drops the _second_ Bucky starts being evasive. "Quit that."

"Sorry."

"No you're not. Just tell me what the hell is going on, would you? Be straight with me." He's getting louder and louder as time goes on, and it's been so long since Bucky's heard this from him that he can't help but smile. 

Steve's older counterpart is so much steadier; Bucky's not sure he realized just how much. He exchanges a glance with Sam, but this only serves to spurn Steve on; his hands bunch into tiny white fists. "If that's all the case," Steve starts in, clearly thinking they're having fun at his expense, "why the hell don't I remember this so-called war!"

"Calm down, would you?"

"And why the hell are you so different? If I didn't know any better I'd say you'd been replaced!"

It's a blow to the gut. Bucky feels his face fall before he can check himself.

"Hey," Sam says, trying to get Steve's attention. His head cranes over only reluctantly, bluster having fallen almost completely away at the obvious shock on Bucky's face. "Be nice to your boyfriend. He broke in here to be with you the whole night."

Steve flits his gaze over to Bucky; opens his mouth; closes it again; and turns an _incredible_ shade of pink at the wide-eyed look on Bucky's face.

"My what?" Steve manages at last, bunching the blankets under his chin. "Who says? Bucky's not my..."

Bucky looks at Sam with severity.

Sam blinks. "Well, shit."

"Well, _yeah._ "

"I, uh," Steve says, and tries to drown himself in blankets.

Bucky reaches over and pulls them gently out of his hands. "Nothing to hide from, Rogers. Relax."

"I'm not sure," Steve pants, waylaid by mounting panic, "I accept the _implication_ \--"

"He wasn't implying anything. Listen -- you know how you're supposed to be older now? How we're supposed to've lived through a lot of years; how we've probably been through a lot, you and me?"

Steve nods, flush deepening.

"Try to accept that things are different now." Something quirks in the corners of Bucky's mouth that he can't quite identify; something fitting snug between happiness and pride. "You and me, we… we've loved each other a long time, Steve. Even in 1936 we loved each other, only we never said anything, and… well, here in the future we said something a long time ago. And now we're -- uh -- together, or whatever, I don't really know what you'd call it, we've never really talked about it, but… there it is."

Steve merely blinks at him, ears turning an impressive crimson. "Together _how?_ "

"You know what I mean. We're -- going steady, Rogers, if that's what makes sense to you."

" _Who's_ going steady?"

"You and me, dumbass. You and me are going steady with each oth -- Jesus _Christ_ , Steve, breathe already, would you?"

Steve's bunched the blankets at his chin again. He opens his mouth, then closes it again, and then forces a laugh, breathy and doubtful. "I don't think so, Bucky."

"Oh, you don't, huh? Then let me lay it out for you. I fell for you in about 1934, you know that?" Here, finally, Steve's expression changes: his brow bunches together in the centre and he looks so stunned and beautiful that Bucky has to smile. "You and your goddamn ideals, Rogers. You and that face I pretended to hate so much. You got under my skin with all that, and I never get over it, not even once. I don't know how you fell for me, and now that I'm realizing that it sounds like a cardinal sin, but I know for a fact you already felt whatever it is that's making you turn purple right now in at _least_ 1935, so -- _damnit_ , you maniac, _breathe_ , get oxygen in your damn lungs."

Steve inhales hard, then exhales. "Fell for me _how_?" he asks, tight and incredulous.

Bucky leans back in his chair and looks at him plainly. "Let me break it down for you in the simplest possible terms, then. When you're jerking off at night--"

" _Hell,_ Bucky!"

"--what are you thinking of?"

Steve only stares at him, eyes wide.

"Yeah," Bucky says. "I'm saying: me too. So when we figure out that's the case, we make it a duo and jerk each other off instead."

"You," Steve says, "can _not_ be serious."

Bucky counts that as progress. 

"So now it's 2018," he continues, "and wouldn't you know, we're still at it. It's legal and everything. We're, y'know... people know about us. We're recognized as a, a couple. By everyone. Even the doctor who was just here asked me if we were married. _To each other_ , before you flip out, and it's no big deal, Rogers. I mean it. There's nothing to hide from. Not for either one of us."

Steve stares at him and blinks. "We have _sex_ with each _other_?"

In the background, Sam rubs furiously at his eyes.

"Yes," Bucky says.

"Bucky," Steve replies, grinning, bashful as hell. "This isn't real."

Bucky rolls his eyes. "So the time travel you accept, but the thought of you and me getting together is too much?"

"I'm in the middle of the first one. I couldn't come up with details like this if I spent my whole life on it. The second one, though..."

"Weren't you always the one who believed in progress?"

"Sure, but you don't feel -- _that way_ about _me_ , Bucky!"

Bucky's eyebrows steeple. "You really gonna argue with me about my own feelings right now?"

"You had three dates last week alone. You barely looked at me, why the hell would--"

"Yeah, Rogers, I barely looked at you because you were all I could think about. I thought I was gonna have to marry a dame someday back in the '30s, so I was trying to get myself accustomed."

"That's insane."

"It is insane. Doesn't make it less the case."

"Why would you…" He gestures at himself, coughs out a laugh, and looks at Bucky with the kind of pure vulnerability that always knocks him flat. "Bucky, come on. Why would you…?"

Bucky feels the tension drag out of him, ebbing away into sympathy. "Come on, Rogers," Bucky says, softer than he'd like. "You know better than that. You're -- you're a force of fucking nature." He gives a fragile smile and swallows; clasps his hands together, nerves clustered in his throat. "There's nowhere you could go that I wouldn't follow, just to watch you try to take on the world. Including the future, apparently, god help us both."

"You... _like_ when I take on the world?"

"I…" Bucky looks to the floor, suddenly embarrassed; a smile hitches on his lips. "You drive me fucking crazy with the way you take on the world. I wanna be there for it. I wouldn't say I like it."

When he looks up again he sees Steve staring at him, suddenly serious.

"You _do_ like it when I take on the world," he mutters.

"I like -- you. Mostly I wish you'd be still for five minutes."

Something quirks on Steve's lips. Bucky can see the beat of his heart in the way his whole body sways.

"I'd be still for you, Bucky," he says, quiet. "If you asked me to."

This is apparently the last straw for Sam. He turns to leave the room, hands flailing in the air. 

Bucky, meanwhile, still can't seem to fight the fondness in him. "For all you change," he says, voice low, "you stay just the same, you know that?"

"Bucky." Steve smiles, a shy and flickering thing. "You swear you're not making this up?"

"I swear on our empty graves, Steve," Bucky says. "Give it a year. You sort all this out on your own and corner me without preamble in '37, and I take it pretty well, believe me. You're just your brave and reckless self all the goddamn time, and it turns out I can't do a thing about that regardless what year it is."

Steve's looking at him with the sudden clarity of conviction, and the smile drops abrupt from Bucky's face. 

"But, listen," Bucky says. "Don't get any ideas." 

It's already too late, by the looks of things. Steve's eyes are flitting over Bucky's form with horrifying appreciation. 

"I mean it," says Bucky, intense. "I'm different in the future, and so are you. You and me, we're not happening right now. You don't know me."

Steve licks his lips. "I know you, Buck." His voice is boxed away in some strange, quiet place.

"No, you don't." Annoyance floods him as fully as if it'd never left. "Do your convictions know no limits? You don't know a goddamn thing."

"You love me, don't you? Didn't you say that?"

Bucky gives a dragging sigh. "How do you always know exactly where to hit? Can't you just let this one thing lie?"

"Why on earth would I do that now?"

"Because I'm not the--"

They're interrupted by a knock by the door. Bucky looks up to see Natasha, pinching back a smile. 

Bucky can very clearly see she interrupted on purpose. "Is this a bad time?" she asks.

"In so many ways," Bucky mutters, but waves her in with something like relief. "Steve, meet Natasha Romanov. She works with us too." 

Steve's mouth has, unfortunately for everyone, fallen open in awe.

"Uh," he says.

"Say hello, dumbass," Bucky mutters, rubbing angrily at his eyes.

"Hello."

"Say it's nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you."

"Shake her hand like a normal person. Don't be weird about it."

Steve's still gaping at her when he takes her hand, but he does, at least, take it, so Bucky counts it as a success. "He can't handle himself around women," Bucky explains flatly.

"I can," Steve says, but then has to look away when Natasha smiles at him.

"Apparently he's--" He cuts off; suddenly frowns. "When in 1936 we talking?"

"September," Steve tells the floor.

"Thank god for small graces. He's 18."

"But people say I'm an old soul," Steve tells Natasha, too serious.

Bucky shuts his eyes. "Please never tell anyone that again."

"You love me," Steve says. Then he leans suddenly toward him, half-shouting: " _Apparently!_ "

"Romanov," Bucky gravels, hand over his eyes. "For the love of god, tell me you're here with intel."

"Nope," says Natasha, far too cheerful about it.

"Well why the hell not?"

"It's been less than a day, Barnes. Give it time."

"We don't have," he gestures at Steve, " _time_."

"Sounds like we do. If it's only 1936, he's got at least five more years until--"

But at the sight of Bucky's widening eyes, Natasha cuts off, lips pursing with belated regret. 

"Five more years until what?" Steve asks, looking between them with concern.

Bucky wishes to _god_ everybody would just leave them the hell alone and stop trying to _help_. "What are you doing here," Bucky grinds out, "if you don't have any new intel?"

"Taking over for Sam," she says. "He seems to feel like you two need third-party support, but says he, quote, 'can't be in that goddamn room right now'."

"That's what you people call this? Support?"

"Five more years until the war?" Steve asks, still concerned.

"Yes," Bucky says. "Now pipe down and let the professionals talk a second, would you?"

Steve opens his mouth, furious, but Bucky sees it coming: he grabs a pillow and hits him in the face before he gets it out. Steve is then reduced to fury of a much more silent sort and, in the face of his sputtering, Bucky finds himself fighting that stupid smile again.

"We're fine," Bucky says slowly to Natasha, "but thank you for your _genuine_ and _abiding_ concern. Now would you go away and consider doing your job instead of bothering me?"

Natasha answers by folding a stick of gum into her mouth, to Steve's renewed distraction. Bucky has a terrible sinking feeling that she is deriving some kind of sick entertainment from all this. 

"I didn't understand why Sam wouldn't want to be here for this," Natasha says, "but now that I'm here--"

"Are you listening?" Bucky asks, tone layered thick with artificial calm.

"--I _really_ don't understand it."

"I can _not_ believe," Steve says, remembering what he was angry about, "you just hit your _lover_ in the _face_ in his _hospital bed_."

Bucky steeples his fingers against his temple and lets the sigh drag out of his throat. When he opens his eyes, he sees Natasha's entire face lit up and staring at him.

 _Lover?_ she mouths.

"Please leave," Bucky shoots back.

"Interesting priorities."

"I'm doing the best I can."

"Do you love me or not?" Steve asks, half-shouting again.

Bucky shuts his eyes. "It was a goddamned _pillow,_ Rogers, intended to coax you into keeping your mouth closed for five seconds. Consider it, would you?"

"Why are you so rude to everyone?" Steve says, just to harass him.

"Yeah, Barnes," Natasha says, grinning dangerously. "Why _are_ you so rude?"

" _Romanov,_ " Bucky growls. " _Leave._ "

"Hey," Steve interjects. "Treat a lady with the respect she deserves!"

Natasha looks so very fucking beyond _delighted_ at this entire exchange that Bucky wishes he felt justified in crawling into the air vents, never to return.

"It's nice to meet you, Steve," Natasha says, ever-cheerful.

"Oh." Steve turns his attention to her, having registered her sincerity. "Likewise. Have we, uh--" His ears start to turn red again; he clears his throat. "We've met before?"

"So you've talked about how the two of you are _lovers_ ," Natasha says, gesturing between them, "but not anything else?"

"One thing at a time!" Bucky says.

"Have you told him about the--"

"No!" Bucky interjects. "Stop helping!"

Natasha's eyes shine. "We have met before," she tells Steve, now openly reveling in Bucky's agony. "We've been friends for a few years now."

"Friends! Hey, that's nice."

"Are you finished?" Bucky asks.

"Not even close," Natasha says.

Steve watches her a moment, then leans closer to Bucky. "Am I still attracted to women in the future?" He may be trying for an undertone, but he is not succeeding. "Because if you and me are--" a smile flits over his face -- "y'know--"

"Yeah, Rogers."

"It's just that I'm pretty sure that I--"

"You're attracted to pretty much everyone," Bucky says, terse. "It's a thorn in my side, frankly."

"Boy."

"Believe me."

"Say cheese." Natasha snaps a picture. 

"Get out," Bucky says.

"So what do we all -- collectively -- do, exactly?" Steve asks, looking between them.

"Well, I'm the boss," says Natasha.

"You are not the boss," Bucky says.

"We solve crimes," says Natasha.

"We do not solve crimes!" Bucky says.

"Did you ask him about his metal arm?" Natasha asks, nodding to it.

"Hey, yeah!" says Steve, pointing back at Bucky.

Bucky shakes his head at her, furious. "There are no words for how much I hate you right now," he mutters, retreating into Russian.

"You'll thank me later."

"Why?! Why would I do that?"

Steve's looking between them with such complete, eclipsing awe that Bucky can no longer tell if it's his 18-year-old libido guiding his responses or just a total abandonment of faculties in the face of so much new information. "Is that _Russian?_ " he asks, voice cracking with youth.

"Yes," Bucky says, full with regret. "Please, Steve, just -- don't ask. I'm begging you."

"Do _I_ speak Russian?"

"Thankfully, no. You're okay with French, got a bit of German, Spanish, Italian. Romanov--"

"You understand a _bit_ of Russian these days," Natasha says, as though Bucky hadn't spoken.

"I didn't follow that at all," Steve says, ever awestruck.

"Can you keep a grip on yourself for five goddamn minutes?" Bucky hisses at him.

"Well, I can see that the two of you are busy." Natasha says it as though she hasn't just spent the last several minutes causing trouble. "I'll leave you to it."

Bucky sighs his relief. "Thank you."

"There are some leads we're gonna shake down to see what we can see," she says then, and Bucky widens his eyes at her, incredulous that she somehow didn't lead with this. "Apart from being possible Hydra pods, we don't have a lot of intel on the locations in question. No guarantee it's Hydra, let alone telling if it's even related to this situation," she gestures at Steve, "but…"

"What's a Hydra pod?" asks Steve.

"Hydra's an organization we fight," Bucky explains, distracted. "Think the liquor board of the present day, but crossed over with the Nazis. Where'd the intel come from?"

Natasha looks as though she doesn't want to tell him. "Don't freak out."

"When have I ever _freaked out_?"

Natasha raises her eyebrows. "Okay. _Well,_ Tony's developed an algorithm that sorts through internet activity, news items, personal accounts and the like for unexplainable events. It then cross-lists them with possible locations of interest -- enemy and Enhanced hideouts, for example. That's how we got these locations."

Bucky stares at her. "Kinda hate that you just told me that."

"I figure you're not really in a position to yell at Tony about it until we solve this issue anyway."

Bucky leans over his knees and looks up at her, trying not to sound too much like he's channeling Steve. "This is the kind of thing we went to war to prevent, Romanov." Natasha raises her eyebrows at him. Bucky rolls his eyes. "I'm saying we want to be careful about how many of the enemies' methods we use lest we fucking become them. Is that better?"

Natasha shrugs and takes out her phone; makes a big deal out of holding her finger over the call key. "You want me to shut down the only lead we have?" she asks. "Say the word."

Bucky stares at Natasha. Natasha stares right back. 

"Fine," Bucky grinds out. "Do what you want."

She puts her phone away with satisfaction. "Make no mistake, Barnes. This is what _you_ want." Then she flashes a smile to Steve and makes to leave, at _long_ fucking last. "See you later, Steve. Feel better soon."

"See you," Steve says, somewhat breathless. 

He watches her leave, sighing deep into his chest. Bucky thinks he might get a moment of rest, until--

"Why are we fighting Hydra?" Steve asks loudly, voice speeding with excitement. "Are they responsible for bringing me here?"

Bucky shuts his eyes, but then gives himself over to it, the same way he ever does; the same way he's always done. "Looks that way. Ever since--" 

Already he has to redirect. He hasn't told Steve he gets big; he hasn't told Steve about anything at all, except the basic timeline of events. "The magic that pulled you out of 1936 and put you here," he tries again. "We were hunting Hydra -- you, me, Sam, Natasha -- when one of their agents hit you with... whatever this is."

"Why would they do that?"

"Well, the Steve of the present has a lot of skills and information that makes it tough for people to beat you. By turning you back, they make you easier to…"

Bucky trails off. He forgets how much new information there is; how awful it seems when he goes to say it aloud.

Steve, nation's best-known smartass, figures it out anyway. 

"Kill," he finishes flatly.

"Well… yeah." Bucky winces. "Sorry."

"It's fine." Bucky blinks with surprise until he remembers just how casual Steve's always been -- always had to be -- about his own mortality. "Honestly, Buck, I'm just relieved to hear I'm still trying to fight corruption after all this time. It's hard to believe I even lived this long." He gives a flickering smile. "Always thought I'd be dead by 25, you know?"

It's a peculiar moment, when reality clouds in; when Bucky remembers what his role is here. 

Suddenly he's drowning in sincerity. "I won't let that happen," Bucky tells him, voice low. "I'm not gonna let anything happen to you, Steve. All right? We're gonna fix this. You're gonna be fine, I swear on my life. I'm not gonna let a damn thing happen to you for as long as you're here. Do you understand?"

And Steve must hear the edge of desperation in his tone, because he doesn't even try to fight him. "Yeah, Bucky," he says, breathless; then gives a tentative smile. "I believe you. You haven't let me down yet."

There's a twinge in Bucky's gut. Tension hangs between them: full with Steve's questions, full with answers Bucky won't give.

"Not to, ah," Steve says eventually, clearing his throat. "Not to change the subject too quick, here, because all this is fascinating, but you know how I feel about hospitals. Should we tell someone I'm awake?"

  


  


* * *

  


  


If Steve can't lie to save his life, he's still happy to try.

"Yeah," Steve says, flushed with innocence. "Twenty eighteen. _Wild._ Last thing I remember was, uh -- twenty twelve. I met Bucky at a -- dance -- hall--"

"A club," Bucky provides flatly.

"A club," Steve agrees. "Where one meets gentlemen. With such. Proclivities. In two thousand and twelve." 

Steve's wearing some untameable grin as he says it. Bucky glares at him, willing him to take it off. Steve either doesn't see or doesn't care. "Now," he continues stumblingly, "in the present, we are common-law partners, I have learned." He takes Bucky's hand, leaving Bucky to grasp gentle at the bony lengths of his fingers. "And that makes sense, because I love him with all my heart."

In the room's doorway, Sam's looking at his feet, either annoyed to all hell or trying frantically not to laugh.

Dr. Sanchez, meanwhile, appears less amused. "And you've been together ever since."

"Bucky says we have. I have no reason to doubt him. I sure feel the right things."

"And Bucky is?"

"My nickname," Bucky says. "Middle name's Buchanan."

"I thought you went by Barnes."

"And I bet you go by Sanchez with your very own family."

The doctor stares at him, then looks down at the chart. "Is there anyone else who can vouch for all of this?" he says, not bothering to conceal his suspicion. "You understand I'm trying to ensure everyone's health and safety here."

Bucky forces a steadying breath. Even he can admit that this looks bad. "Where's Romanov?" he asks Sam, thinly.

"She's on her way," says Sam. "My word's not enough, huh?"

"For all I know you may be in on whatever this is."

Steve's brow flickers with something between indignation and confusion, but Bucky squeezes his hand to encourage him into silence.

"I know how it looks," Bucky says. "I didn't do this to Steve."

"It might be best if you step out," Sanchez says.

Steve looks incensed; Bucky wills him to stillness. "I don't want Bucky to go," Steve says, then turns to Bucky, full with concern. "He thinks _you_ hit me?"

"He's just doing his job. Getting defensive's only gonna make it worse."

"Bucky'd die before he hit me," Steve says, loudly.

Sam raises his eyebrows in Bucky's direction. Bucky just closes his eyes and waits for the storm to pass.

"I get myself into fights all the time," Steve continues. "He only ever patches me up. He's always kind to me, and gentle, and -- good. He wouldn't hurt a fly."

Bucky opens his mouth, then closes it again, torn between a desire to correct and a certainty that he cannot. "Steve," he grinds out eventually. "This is not a slight against you. It's a slight against me if it's anything, and--"

"Well I won't put up with that either," Steve says, squaring his jaw.

Bucky sighs at him, but can't help but to feel endeared by his peaked conviction. "I'll step out if required," he tells Sanchez.

"No you won't," Steve tells him. "Sit the hell down, Bucky."

Sanchez looks between them like he's never seen anything like this before, but ultimately shrugs and gestures to Bucky to keep his seat. "You seem to be in fine health," he says to Steve, "considering what you're in for. Head CT was clear; you seem to have no concussion to speak of, no evidence of head trauma at all. That makes this amnesia and the preceding unconsciousness all the more peculiar."

"I have, uh, syncope," Steve offers. "Circulation problems. Is it possible I just passed out and then…" He clears his throat. "Forgot six years of my life?"

"Yes, your partner tried to expand on your existing health conditions, without success. Can you shed more insight into--"

"Congenital ventricular tachycardia," Steve starts in. "Contributes to the syncope and the circulation problems. Heart murmur -- they think it's a septal defect. Asthma, chronic sinus infections, fluid in my ears all the time--"

"I wasn't that far off," Bucky mutters.

"--scarlet fever, rheumatic fever, pneumonia twice a year--"

Sanchez frowns and takes notes. "Any changes after the various fevers?"

"They happened when I was a kid. Breathing got harder, heart probably got worse."

"Did you know you're hypertensive?"

"Not sure what that means, but it sounds like it would describe me."

Bucky fights a laugh. Sanchez looks less entertained. "High blood pressure."

"Oh, sure," Steve says. "That makes sense."

"Does it?"

"Just given the sound of it."

Sanchez stares at him, then sits down at the foot of the bed. Annoyance flickers over Steve's face at the intrusion, but he keeps his mouth shut for once. "You know, many of these are treatable."

Steve blinks; gives himself a second to adjust. "That so?"

"You ever been offered a medication for your high blood pressure? For the ear infections, sinus infections?"

Steve stares, then seems to recall he isn't supposed to remember the last six years anyway. "Uh, not that I can recall."

"Like I said," says Bucky, "we've been out of the country."

"Without health insurance _anywhere_?"

"Yes," Bucky says flatly. "It's been a while since he's seen a doctor."

"And the fact that _none_ of these have been treated?"

He is saved, once again, when Natasha sweeps into the room.

"Hey," she says. "Sam texted. What's up?"

Bucky gestures to the doctor. "Natasha Romanov, Dr. Sanchez."

"I have some questions I'm hoping you can answer," says Sanchez, shaking her hand.

Natasha nods, casual as anything. "Sure. How can I help?"

"Can you confirm the relationship between Mr. Jones and Mr. Barnes?"

"Yeah," Natasha says, without missing a beat. "They've been together for years."

"And they've been out of the country?"

"Yeah, they travel for work. Russia, Germany, Wakanda… and that's just in recent memory." She quirks her head. "Why?"

For all the shit he gives her, Bucky feels nothing but affection for Natasha in this moment. Sanchez' eyebrows steeple; he looks through the chart. "All right, well. Situation strikes me as a bit strange, but that said, there really is nothing new under the sun." He puts the chart away and nods at Steve. "I still want to run an ECG, but unless something comes up I see no reason to keep you here much longer. You're comfortable being released into your friends' care?"

Steve nods vigorously. "I am."

"Fine. I'll write you a prescription for some blood pressure medication. You _must_ follow up with a neurologist on this amnesia situation. I also _strongly_ recommend, if you're going to be in the States for a while, that you see a cardiologist for a surgical consult."

Steve blinks. "Uh. Really?"

"You may also want to look into a lung specialist; get some effective medication for your asthma as well. Your lungs are tighter than they should be on a day-to-day basis."

"Alright."

"And try not to take any more blows to the head."

"Yeah, sure. You bet." Steve smiles. Bucky looks to the ceiling in exasperation.

"You," Sanchez says, pointing at Bucky. "Make sure he gets the care he needs."

"I promise."

"All right," says Sanchez, and looks uneasily between them all. "Well, take care now."

And then he leaves the room.

Bucky lets out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. "Thank you," he says to Natasha.

"No problem," she says easily.

"You are… good at the things that you choose to do," Steve tells her choppily, then looks briefly like he wishes God would strike him down on the spot.

"Like lying?" She flashes him a warm smile. "Someone has to be. Sorry I took a while; I was trying to follow up on those leads. Tony's tech failed halfway through recon and I wound up stranded without recourse." She looks to Sam. "I'm gonna go back to Stark Tower and try to coordinate. You wanna come?"

Sam nods, arms crossed. "You two gonna be alright on your own?"

"We'll be great," Steve says, just this side of hasty.

Bucky glares at him, suspicious. "We'll be fine," he mutters thinly.

Sam looks as distrustful of the situation as Bucky feels. "Okay, well. You want to switch out," Sam says, "say the word. No one expects you to carry this alone."

"Yeah," Bucky says, and nods. "Thanks."

Then, to retreating footsteps, they are left alone.

Bucky counts off three seconds of cloying silence before the smile twitches back onto Steve's face. He starts to grow rosy again, looking at the foot of the bed. "So."

"No," Bucky says.

Steve looks at him at once. "Bucky…"

" _No._ "

"You don't even know what I was gonna say!"

"I know exactly what you were gonna say." Bucky launches out of his chair and runs a hand through his hair, turning to Steve with hands on his hips. "I made a mistake telling you about all that."

"You didn't."

"I hated the thought that you'd be tormented by their asinine insistence on mocking me without having the context. Knowing your hair trigger you'd've popped 'em one within minutes if I hadn't clarified with you."

"Then you made the right choice."

Bucky stares at him, jaw set. "No."

"Aw, come on!"

"A few hours ago you were looking at me like you had no idea who I was. You were right the first time: you don't."

"I know you, Bucky." 

Bucky could swear the only time Steve ever gets this soft is when he wants Bucky to take him out of himself.

"No you don't! Listen for once in your goddamned life!"

"I know you." His lashes sit low on his cheeks. 

Bucky knows what he's doing, and yet he's so damn weak for it. 

"I'm twice your age." It's a hail mary and it sounds like it. 

Steve looks at Bucky with a dawning smile.

Bucky gapes at him, scandalized. " _No!_ "

"That's, uh..."

"No it is _not_ , Steve, don't even _say_ it."

"That's really--"

"No it's _not!_ Adjust your dial to reality!"

"God," Steve says. "Bucky, can you just--" He reaches out a hand, but Bucky pulls his arm out of reach. 

"Learn an _ounce_ of restraint."

"Bucky," Steve says, and licks his lips around a grin. "Bucky, I'm _fine._ "

"Feeling fine and actually being fine are two different things!"

"I'm fine _with this._ "

"You don't even know what this _is_!"

"I thought you said there was nothing to hide."

"There isn't. This isn't about _hiding_ , Rogers, it's about -- ethics, and decency, and -- not cheating on my actual boyfriend with his younger counterpart."

Steve frowns, searching him, apparently struck by the baldness of Bucky's mounting anxiety. "Hey," he says. "This is okay, Buck. We're okay."

"We are not okay," Bucky tells him, emphatic. "Let's get that much straight."

Steve cocks his head. Bucky purses his lips in tacit threat against whatever bullshit sympathy Steve's about to come up with. 

"What's happened to you, Bucky?" he asks, soft.

Bucky shakes his head at him. "That exactly proves my point, Rogers. You and me get together right now, you don't know a single thing about who it is you'd be fucking." 

Steve's eyebrows fly up. 

Bucky shuts his eyes in immediate regret. "Or kissing," he amends, "or whatever it is you actually want. That's not a question, by the way, don't answer that."

Because there is no god, Steve starts blushing again, eyes scanning over every inch of Bucky's form. "So we just… go straight from nothing to…" 

"Stop that."

"Is it the -- arm thing giving you pause?" Steve asks, gesturing at Bucky's shoulder. "I don't care about that either. I actually think it's kind of--"

"I am begging you, Rogers," Bucky cuts in, harsh, "do not finish that sentence."

Steve falters to silence. Bucky sees a concern he doesn't like settling into his face. "So tell me what happened," Steve says. "If you're so concerned about my not knowing about all this, fill me in. Who are you, Bucky?" Steve extends a hand, and all of a sudden it's just Steve damn Rogers, trying to help him all over again. "Tell me."

Convincing himself Steve's not gonna go so far as to actually crawl into his lap if he sits nearby, Bucky throws himself back down into the chair and rubs his hands over his face. 

"It's so complicated, Steve," he husks.

"Is it _that_ bad?"

"It's -- a long story. Not necessarily a pleasant one, at points."

"So you're just gonna let me loose on this world being the only one who doesn't know what I've lived?"

Bucky stares at him. It's an annoyingly good question.

"You seem shaken to see me like this." Steve, too smart for his own good again.

"Yeah," Bucky admits. "You're not wrong."

"You knew I was -- out of place right off."

Bucky takes a steadying breath. "Well, I look different. Makes sense you would too, right?"

"There's more to this," Steve says, full with conviction.

"More than you know, Rogers."

"So explain it to me."

"It's all… pretty unbelievable."

Steve shrugs. "A lot of things are unbelieveable. Doesn't make them less real."

Bucky leans back in his chair and looks at Steve's thin, earnest face as though any of this seems remotely plausible even to _him_. "If I told you, Rogers, that you would do anything to save the world--" he swallows; raises his chin in defiance of his nerves -- "that you would go to any lengths, no matter how absurd or otherworldly, to save my sorry ass from an unpleasant fate in the process… what would you say to that?"

"I'd say that sounds pretty believable to me, Bucky."

That's Steve Rogers, all right; accept no substitutes.

Bucky leans forward on his knees -- pulls out his phone, runs a quick search on Captain America. "I'd hold onto that feeling if you possibly can for the next little while, Steve. This is gonna be a lot to swallow." He turns the phone to face him. "You ever wonder what it'd be like to be taller?"

  


  


* * *

  


  


Bucky leaves for food and fresh air as they prepare release papers and comes back with a fresh set of clothes. Steve smiles at him when he enters, but otherwise retreats into an eerie, uncharacteristic reticence, apparently humbled for once in his life by all he's been told.

"You all right?" Bucky mumbles, squinting uncomprehendingly at the paperwork he's been given.

"Fine," Steve says, pulling on pants with artificial nonchalance. "Listen, I want to see the Smithsonian."

Bucky tries to argue, but there's enough determination on Steve's face that he knows he's never going to win.

Shaking his head, he texts Sam and Natasha the plan and buys the tickets they need.

Apart from the requisite burst of self-satisfaction at being given what he wants, Steve quickly retreats into silence once they leave the hospital; stays that way the whole trip down. Bucky starts to understand a little better how he became so quiet on this side of the ice. He'd always thought, selfishly, that Steve had been irreversibly affected by the grief of losing him, but maybe all along it's just been the effect of jumping ahead so far, so unexpectedly.

The best result of Steve's seriousness is that he seems to have forgotten his excitement that they are together in this grim future. He doesn't even try to coax Bucky into touching him, preferring to press his face against the window of the train -- watching traffic go by, mapping cities, learning about buildings and people and roads. For how little he understands, he says almost nothing; his few questions come out almost shy. 

Bucky nearly doesn't recognize him as the Steve he knew back in the day, yet to look at him makes his heart sink as though weighted by stone. 

He offers Steve nothing but steadiness in return -- answers his questions with muted directness. He tries to balance comfort with sincerity, fighting all the while against the urge to take him under his wing and shield him from all of it. They still haven't, though, talked about Bucky's arm. Steve's eyes fall to it on occasion; Bucky gloves it, to keep it out of sight. Even Steve seems to sense he's not ready to hear it, and if Bucky's honest, that suits them both. 

Yet he has the abiding sense that, once Steve's learned his own history, he won't hesitate to round on his. 

He tries to think what he's going to tell him.

 _"So you killed dozens of innocent people?"_

_"What can I say, Steve? Took a number of years to break that programming the enemy gave me after you didn't stop me falling from that train, but don't you worry! These days I'm safe as houses -- I mean,_ probably--"

Steve doesn't notice when Bucky wrenches his gaze away at sight of the Potomac. They are, at least, afforded the reprieve of avoiding that particular slice of history.

They opt to walk to the museum from Union Station; Steve has never, after all, been to D.C. before. They pass by the Capitol building, wander through the National Mall, full with things Steve doesn't understand and doesn't ask about. 

He takes it all in with attentive eyes, hands shoved in his pockets.

It's only once they get to the museum that Steve suddenly halts, worry etched deep on his face.

Bucky waits with him, but after a few seconds of mute hesitation, Steve steps forward as though he'd never stopped at all. "Alice in Wonderland," Steve mutters, and flashes Bucky a thin smile as they step through the door.

Bucky nods him into the gift shop first thing. He buys them each a hat and pulls Steve's low over his head. "People might recognize you anyway," he says, "but ignore them. Eventually they'll decide they're wrong and move on."

"Really?" Steve mutters, tugging unhappily at its brim. "Aren't I kind of plastered all over this place?"

"You're supposed to be big, remember? No one's gonna think you've been powered down. They'll move along fast enough."

Steve's trepidation dissipates within minutes of stepping inside, replaced by open astonishment. He marvels at everything; watches the videos with intense focus, lingering at the one of himself -- so tall, laughing with Bucky -- for as long as Bucky had, the first time he'd seen it. Steve watches Peggy talk and blinks back an inexplicable mist, though he hasn't yet met her. He takes it all in in absolute silence.

Bucky follows him wherever he wants to go. He doesn't contribute. He's here to answer the few questions Steve has, but Steve only has one: "It says you died," muttered over his shoulder when Steve eventually returns to the plaque he's passed by three times already, transfixed by something Bucky can't identify.

"Don't you worry about that, Rogers," Bucky says. He swallows around a shaky smile. "That's just when I got sent into the future."

Steve seems to accept this at face value, against the odds. The museum clears out as time closes in, and once the crowds are thin enough, Steve hooks his fingers in the Captain America uniform replica and tugs at it. He looks up at the display of the Howling Commandos splain behind it, at himself, at Bucky, looking back at him from the portrait much closer to how Steve must remember him -- all as though trying to feel some connection to it, this past and future he doesn't know.

It's too much, even for Bucky. His eyes shut tight, just for a second, but when he opens them again Steve is still small.

Steve's knuckles unbend. He lets go of the uniform and shoves his hands into his pockets as he turns to face Bucky. "Okay," he says, unwavering, "I'm ready to go now." 

Bucky wonders what it must be like to have to face him again in amidst facsimiles of the Bucky he remembers. Steve looks up at him like the man he'll become in every way but size and Bucky hooks an elbow around Steve's neck, just to give him _something_ that's familiar. 

"You all right?" he mutters at Steve's temple.

Steve leans into him as natural as he ever has, and for a second it's as it was all those years ago. "I have no idea."

He keeps his mouth shut the whole way home again.

If he'd never met Steve when he's big, Bucky thinks he'd be terrified.

  


  


* * *

  


  


Steve falls asleep, face pressed against Bucky's shoulder, about forty minutes from the city. Bucky lets him stay, despite abiding apprehension; doesn't move an inch.

He _definitely_ doesn't overthink it.

Some distantly familiar grogginess follows Steve out of Penn Station, but energy restores to him to see Natasha screech up in one of Stark's ridiculous sportscars just out the doors.

It is a two-seater. 

Bucky looks to the sky in exasperation. 

Natasha smirks at him. "Figured you two could share," she says, reaching over to pry the door open.

Bucky shakes his head and ushers Steve inside, certain this is a stunt at his expense. "Have I told you today that I hate you, Romanov?"

"Come on, Buck," Steve mutters, apparently not so sleepy as to make allowance for his abuses. 

"I had to invent a reason to borrow one of Tony's cars," Natasha explains, smiling kindly at Steve as he shoves over to make room for Bucky. "He wouldn't lend me an SUV for a solo run, I'm not that malicious."

"Forgive me for not putting it past you." Bucky legs his way furiously inside, throwing an arm behind Steve's back to prevent him falling off the seat. "Fine, we're in. Floor it already."

"Who's Tony?" Steve asks, turning that blushing pink again as Natasha starts down the street.

"You know the Howard Stark who founded S.H.I.E.L.D. with Carter?" Bucky says.

"Yeah."

"His son's a billionaire by the name of Tony. He works with us too."

"All right," Steve says, as though it should be perfectly natural they work with a billionaire. He then starts sliding off the seat.

Bucky hitches Steve upright again, to Steve's blushing consternation. "This isn't working," Bucky mutters. "Put your legs on me, Rogers, no point being shy."

Steve takes to the suggestion with surprising immediacy, given his impressive shade of puce. "What's an SUV?"

"Like a carryall suburban."

"This works fine," Steve decides, and clears his throat.

Bucky pinches at his eyes with his free hand and suddenly wishes for the simplicity of Steve falling asleep on him. "Romanov," he gravels. "Please tell me today was productive."

"We sourced the attacker to a flat in SoHo," she says, sounding far too amused for his taste.

"Thank god."

"Unfortunately they'd already cleared out of the location by the time we got there."

"Of course they did."

"They were hasty, though. We managed to recover a bit of intel they failed to completely wipe from a broken SIM card; got a couple coordinates that seem worth checking out. We're in touch with Maximoff, trying to see what insight she has based on -- you know -- what she remembers from her Hydra days."

"What?" Bucky's brow wrinkles. "Maximoff was never Hydra."

"She was initially trained by Hydra-as-S.H.I.E.L.D., actually. She only joined with Ultron and then us after we took down Strucker."

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Who's Maximoff?" Steve asks.

"She's a friend of ours," says Natasha.

"She's an Enhanced, like the guy who hit you," Bucky explains. "She's on our side. If anyone can explain how this could have even _happened,_ it's her."

"She used to be with Hydra?"

"She was _trained_ by Hydra," Natasha clarifies. "That doesn't mean she aligned with them ideologically. From what we know about her history, it sounds primarily like a captivity situation."

"Still," Steve says, "why trust her? How could you ever trust someone who defected from an organization like that?"

The silence that follows is so prolonged and so tense that Steve doesn't even need to be told he's stumbled on something. 

"Okay," he says. "I'm missing something."

"Don't worry about it," Bucky mutters.

"This seems important. I don't want to step in something I shouldn't."

"You're already being overloaded, Rogers. Let's save a bit for tomorrow."

Annoyance flickers across his brow. "I can take it, Bucky."

"You barely managed consciousness for twelve consecutive hours today. Accept a limit, would you?"

Steve glowers. "You're sexy when you're angry," he mutters, apparently purely in retaliation.

Bucky frowns disbelievingly in his face, but far from discouraging him, Steve looks to be thrilled.

Bucky faces forward again, eyes pinched shut. "Romanov, you got a deflection handy?"

"I like this version of you, Steve," Natasha says only.

"Oh," Steve says, pleasantly surprised. "Thank you, that's very nice of you to say. I like this version of you, too."

Natasha hums. "He doesn't get a lot of compliments, does he?"

"I more than make up for it later," Bucky mutters.

" _Do_ you?" Natasha and Steve crow in unison.

"You gonna finish debriefing me," Bucky says loudly, "or are you just here to join in double nuisance hour with Steve Rogers?"

"This nuisance just picked you up from the train station at midnight." Natasha swerves fanatically around a corner, leaving Steve holding onto Bucky for dear life. 

"Yeah, I really owe you one." Bucky forces Steve's fingers from his shirt when they don't unfurl on their own. "We'd have been better off in a cab."

"You've rolled out of vehicles before, what's stopping you now?"

"You _have_?" Steve accuses.

" _That_ is," Bucky tells her.

"Is that safe?" Steve asks.

"Do it with an arm desensitized to pain and it starts to be."

Steve twists, trying to see where Bucky's left hand is set against his back; seems to blush to remember it. "Oh. Right. Okay, that's--"

"Rogers," Bucky grinds out, eyes closing. "Don't say it."

"It's just…" He gives a thrill of laughter. "It's -- nevermind."

"You like the arm, huh?" Natasha says.

"I like a lot of things," Steve says, strangled.

"If you can't find a filter, Rogers, I got one for you." Bucky presses his hand over Steve's mouth without thinking, and Steve fights him, because of course he does. A short laughing commotion later and Bucky gets a grip on Steve's flailing limbs, leaning in with some tight smile and challenging Steve to sit _still_.

It's immediately a mistake, from the look on Steve's face.

"Jesus Christ," Bucky hisses, withdrawing as far as he can manage with Steve still half-strewn over him. Steve merely presses his free hands to his face and doesn't say anything.

Bucky leans forward to glare at Natasha. "You figuring out what a mistake this was yet?" he bites.

"Getting there," Natasha mutters, surprising him by looking repentant. 

"Well, get there faster."

"I'm not a mistake," says Steve -- quiet; wrought from seriousness.

Bucky rubs the indignation out of his face and remembers that he's supposed to be helping Steve, not making his life even more difficult. "No, Rogers," he sighs. "You're not a mistake. But I told you before -- you and me, we're not supposed to happen right now. _That's_ the mistake."

"I don't think that's a mistake either." His fingers pick idly at the sleeve of Bucky's shirt. "You're just gonna have to live with that."

It's so _goddamn_ characteristic of him to say something so brazen and stupid, but it hits hard as much for the fact that Steve sounds as downcast and rejected as he's ever been when someone's pushed him away. 

Bucky finds he wants to treat him the same as when it'd been someone _else_ rejecting him: with the most affection he could ever muster from the marrow of his love-averse bones. He strokes his thumb in small, concentric circles at Steve's ankle, aiming for comfort without crossing a line.

"You hungry?" he asks. He finds he has nothing to say for or against the asshole who's hurt him this time, except that he's pretty sure he's doing the right thing.

Steve shrugs, then rests his head against Bucky's shoulder the way he used to, or the way he someday will. "Guess so."

"Stark'll have something. He always does. Or -- shit, you don't know food here, do you? It's different, Rogers, you'll like it. You already do. I'll order your favourites."

Against his shoulder, he feels Steve crack a smile. "It's midnight. What's open?"

"They'll deliver. Manhattan's amazing. Just you wait, Steve, you're gonna be blown away."

"Okay, Buck. Whatever you say."

Bucky registers how nice it is to feel Steve warm against him like that -- just _nice._ And he starts to figure out that Steve's not the only one who's become a bit unstuck in time.

  


  


* * *

  


  


Seeing Sam bent over a worktable when they walk into Stark Tower is a relief. At least _someone_ other than Bucky is taking this seriously.

"Hey," Bucky says. "Any developments?"

Sam turns to look at them, obviously annoyed, as Bucky looks up from his phone. "Have a nice time on your field trip?" Sam asks.

Bucky blinks. He looks to Natasha for an explanation, but she only shakes her head and shrugs. 

"You really gonna give me shit for showing Steve what he deserves to know?" Bucky asks him.

"While expecting the rest of us to work at generating some answers for you the whole time? Guess I am."

Maybe it's the pressures of the day wearing on him, but Bucky can't shrug off the feeling of being attacked. "So -- let me get this straight. You think that Steve, not knowing a thing about this world, is supposed to just sit tight in good faith for god knows how long until we can put him back?"

"I'm not talking about him. I'm talking about you."

"All right. So you, in his position, would want a perfect stranger to take you to a city you've never been to in a world this unfamiliar? Because he asked _me_ to go to D.C., Wilson. Or maybe you missed that detail."

"I didn't miss it. I'm saying you had alternatives."

"You don't expect me to let someone else escort Steve on a tour of our own epitaphs."

"Right. I forgot about your inimitable history. Far be it from me to--"

"Shut _up_ , Wilson, Jesus." Bucky pulls the elastic out of his hair in frustration. "I'm pushing hard on finding a solution to this, but that comes out of the same place going to the Smithsonian did: to prove to a poor, scared kid who has no idea what the fuck is going on that he's not alone. You'd fault me for that?"

"I'm not a kid," Steve says from somewhere behind him.

"You really think that if you're not present, he's alone?" Sam says.

"Right now? Frankly, yeah!"

Sam turns away, shaking his head. "I honestly don't know why I'm surprised that y'all have been like this for fifteen goddamn years of your lives."

"Jesus! This isn't like that! Don't pretend that this is somehow comparable to what Steve did for me. I'm the only person he knows."

"When have I heard that before?"

Bucky blinks his outrage, but Steve steps in front of him before he can reply, hands clenched into fists. 

"I wanted to go," Steve says, loud and firm. "I wanted to go and I wanted Bucky to come with me. If it delays figuring out whatever made this happen, so be it. Frankly I'm tired of everybody acting like I don't make my own choices just because I'm younger than you expect me to be." He looks at each of them in turn, chest rising and falling with the force of his convictions. "I can fend for myself. Stop treating me like I don't know what I want."

Sam blinks down at him, then rubs at his eyes. "You know what? You're right. I think we're all a bit thrown here and maybe falling short of perfection. I don't mean to take it out on you."

Steve stares, as though still waiting for a thrown gauntlet. "Well… yeah," he says, when he realizes at last there isn't going to be one. "Okay. Good. Thank… you." He turns to Bucky, confused. "You know some reasonable people."

Bucky smiles thinly. "Don't usually resort to fisticuffs." He looks up at Sam. "Right?"

Sam extends a hand to Bucky; pulls him in with a clap on the back. "Sorry, man, don't listen to me. Guess I just forgot how hard it is to be Captain America alone."

"Yeah, I've been there. I really didn't mean to fuck off for two days."

"I get that. You know how it is when we're down one, let alone two. Wish we were higher capacity, but with Stark being the person he is--"

"Sam Wilson," FRIDAY says, sudden.

Steve starts and looks to the ceiling. Sam, meanwhile, cuts out an irritated sigh. "Yeah, FRIDAY, what is it?"

"Is there a problem?"

Sam looks to Bucky with wide eyes, apparently concerned his attempt to bad-talk Stark is being censored. "Why would there be a problem?"

"Facial recognition software registers Captain Steve Rogers in the building. However, by all other metrics, the figure in question--"

"Oh," Sam says. "Right. It's not an imposter, FRIDAY. Steve's been hit by a mutant power, he's just smaller for now."

"I see," says FRIDAY. "Shall I register this alternate version in the security protocols?"

Bucky and Sam exchange a look. "Kinda hoping that won't be necessary," Bucky says in undertone.

"Better do it anyway," Sam says. "You got metrics on Steve's pre-serum dimensions in your database, FRIDAY?"

"I do."

"They should match the man in the room. May as well register that as a possible alternate form of Steve Rogers."

"Confirmed," says FRIDAY. "I'll run it by Master Stark and notify you when the protocol's been registered."

"Thanks, FRIDAY."

The computer chimes off.

"Who," Steve starts in, "the _hell_ is _that_?"

"Security system," says Bucky. "Part of the reason Stark's a billionaire is that he makes advanced systems like that."

"She sounds kinda like my mom."

The laughter bursts out of Bucky before he can help it. "Well, you're not wrong."

Steve looks suddenly worried. "Guess she died a long time ago."

"Hey," Bucky says, setting a hand at his back. "Don't think about that. Listen, you want to be part of figuring this thing out?"

"Yeah, of course." He regains his focus; collapses into the chair Bucky's pulled out for him. "I wouldn't let you do all this work for me alone."

"All right, but just remember you're not running this show. You're a participant and that's it. Got it?"

"Fine," Steve says, apparently reluctant to accept compromise. "I guess… debrief me?"

Natasha raises her eyebrows. "Fast learner."

"Yeah, it's his foremost curse," Bucky mutters.

Sam stares between them as though waiting for someone to object to something, but when no one does, he sighs and brings the display up on the wall. "Right," he says, sounding beyond tired. "Okay, to recap the mission itself that caused all this: two days ago the four of us went in to run recon on a Hydra cell rumoured at this address. I stayed aboveground while the three of you went in through the tunnel network we've long suspected existed but that we finally found a back entrance to a few weeks ago. Scans showed nothing in the tunnel beforehand, but when comms went out I figured out pretty quick something not right was going on." He flips to the next map to Steve's ongoing awe. "I found Natasha first, unconscious. By the time we dug our way through the rubble, Steve was small and Barnes was looking like he'd just had a heart attack. It couldn't have taken more than ten minutes all told."

"I got taken down by an Enhanced with electrical abilities," Natasha says. "I'd guess the tunnel collapse was caused by an Enhanced too."

"Yeah," Bucky says throwing himself into a chair beside Steve with a sigh. "It turned out there were five hostiles present when we entered the central corridor, despite scans. It was kind of an ambush. Nat engaged one in hand-to-hand and chased her down a side corridor. Steve made quick work of the second hostile, then took off after a third who'd chased after Nat."

Natasha hums. "I didn't know there was another one after me. I must've been already out."

"Must've been some charge," Bucky says. "Sure you're feeling all right?"

She quirks her mouth, evasive. "Fine. Couldn't get my teeth to stop humming for a while."

"Yeah," he says. "They do that."

Bucky sees Steve's head turn to him in the corner of his eye. "I'd taken care of hostile four when I heard Steve cry out," he continues quickly, before Steve can interrupt. "Exchanged a glance with the fifth -- pretty sure she recognized me given how fast she took off in the opposite direction, but as I was headed toward Steve she still managed to collapse the hallway by force of will. Seemed to be more interested in trying to box me in than anything."

"So that's hostiles one and five escaped," Sam summarizes, "plus hostile three being the one that de-aged Steve in the first place, apparently gone. Under the circumstances we left hostiles two and four where they were -- unconscious, so far as we know."

"So we neutralized no one and accomplished nothing," Bucky says shortly. "That's a mission failure if I've ever heard it."

"Not necessarily," Natasha says. "It _was_ a bit of an ambush, and we learned a lot. We know that there's a whole tunnel network now -- probably hosts a not insignificant base of Hydra's operations. We know Hydra has multiple Enhanced with varying powers on their side. And we know they can interfere with our scanning and recon tech without our even registering there's anything wrong with it."

"If you're gonna get screwed," Bucky mutters, "I guess it is good to know just how deep."

"So nice to have you back, Barnes," Natasha says with false levity.

Bucky sighs deep into his chest and looks to Sam again. "Romanov said you got something from some apartment."

Sam nods and brings up an email exchange on the wall. "It's not much, but we can basically guess that Hydra's running a recruitment program of some kind to bring in Enhanced -- or, as Wanda suggests, possibly to actually create them. That's how she and her brother were given powers; they were experimented on until extra-human abilities made themselves apparent. Wanda's best guess, based on similar Enhanced activity in Chicago, is that Hydra may be trying to build some kind of high-chaos army: create Enhanced, pay them city-liveable salaries, then send them on nuisance missions throughout the country."

"Hang on," Steve cuts in. "I was more or less with you until that point. Why go to all that trouble for _nuisance missions_? That seems like such a… waste."

Sam nods. "It seems like it on the surface, but get Enhanced contributing to social unrest -- provoking cops at a protest, spreading misinformation to undermine causes, make it look like people with powers are using them in the resistance -- and we get conflict, disunity, and scapegoats, all used to justify state-sponsored violence and repression against any resistance to Hydra and the state."

Steve shakes his head, mouth open. "And all that's happening now? We moved pretty freely between…"

But even as Steve says it, Sam picks up a remote from the table and switches on the TV at the far end of the room. He flips slowly through five consecutive satellite livestreams, all of them showing unrest in different parts of the country. In stream after stream, citizens clash with police bodies among flaming cars; military authorities clear out solidarity camps forming in rural parts of the country. 

"Gotta know where to look," Sam says. "This is just part of what's going down. You want me to keep going?" 

"No," Steve says, made quiet by shock. "I get the idea."

Sam shuts the TV off and throws the remote onto the table. Bucky knows what it looks like; it's hard not to look at that and see the early '30s reflected back at him, in part. He draws Steve's attention with fingertips brushing at the back of his wrist. "It's a lot," he admits. "But we're in the fight for good, Steve. It's what we do here."

"Didn't we win the war?" His tone is so hollow and helpless, so unlike his own. Bucky wishes desperately he'd tried to explain more about the world at large on the train ride home.

"We won _that_ war," Bucky says. "Been plenty others in the decades since."

For the first time since Steve woke up in that hospital bed, Bucky's coming to doubt his ability to cope with the influx of information. Steve bunches a hand in the floppy mane of his hair and stares at the centre of the table. 

"Hey," Bucky says, and wraps his fingers gentle around Steve's wrist -- a grounding gesture, the way he used to. "Remember how well we lived until the market crashed? Remember when my father was alive and he had work and we had pocket money to spend on marbles? And then," he says, smiling grimly, "remember two years later, when all our clothes were too loose and you yelled at me when you learned I was wrapping my feet in cloths because all five of my toes were poking out of all my socks all the time? Remember how you spent every Sunday after Church trying to help me find a job until we ran out of places to check or your lungs gave out? Then instead of marbles, we just threw rocks at some rusted tin can for fun until cold drove us home..."

Steve props his elbow on the table and rubs at his eyes. "You're awful at pep talks."

Bucky smiles. "I'm trying to say that if you ask me what progress is, I can't fucking tell you. But I can tell you that people know what they deserve, and they're gonna fight like hell to get it. Check out who's standing around you in this room and tell me fighting doesn't get you anywhere." He squeezes gently at his arm and then lets go, before they fall into any more old habits. "I can hardly believe it myself, Rogers, but after all those years it turns out you had the right idea all along."

Steve stares at the table a while longer, serious as Bucky's ever seen him, but then sighs and adjusts his posture. "And that's what we do here. Fight."

"Pretty much."

"Where?" Steve asks. "How?"

"With decentralized bullshit like this going on," Sam interrupts, gesturing at the map on the wall, "it's getting harder to figure out even just where to put our energies. Sometimes we just don't know."

"Right now, though, we have a pretty specific direction." Natasha gestures at Steve. "Now we know more about the enemy who did this to you. So let's start there, or we'll get bogged down."

Steve looks between each of them as though trying to figure something out, but stays silent as Sam turns back to the display. "We didn't find much in that apartment," Sam explains. "But we did find enough to isolate three additional points of interest in what we've decided has gotta be a pretty considerable network of tunnels. So far as we can tell, they don't show up on any maps or blueprints for the city, but they _do_ seem to potentially connect at the hotbed we were looking at near 5th and 57th."

Sam clicks through two more maps: first, possible tunnel routes for how the additional locations link back to the bed they've already discovered; then a projection of just how vast the tunnel network might actually be. "Looks like these things spread like tendrils across Manhattan; may even go into Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx. Don't ask me how they've gone undocumented before now, I don't even want to think about it. Could be that they're new, or that Hydra's been using them for years and we just never knew. Could be a whole damn city we don't know about, or it could be as simple as alcoves. We won't know anything for sure until we can do complete recon on the area." Sam brings up a map focused on Manhattan, showing incomplete pathways that he seems to have confirmed -- suggestions of possible points of entry through the sewers or connecting to the street. "You got intel on any of this, Barnes?"

"No," Bucky says, incredulous. "I've never seen or heard anything about this. I'm kinda blown away, to be honest."

"Hydra's had underground bunkers before," Natasha says.

Bucky gestures. "You'd call that a bunker? It's Hydra City, right the fuck underneath us."

"The real problem," Sam interjects, "is that every time we make headway on figuring out where they go, our tech comes up with nothing. Nothing every time, even when human eyes can clearly register that there is something there."

Bucky shakes his head. "That doesn't make any damn sense. Are they being -- hacked? Is there some kind of EMP or whatever that could be giving them a false read?"

"An artificial feed seems likeliest," Natasha says, nodding. "Something's probably copying over what the scanner actually picks up with preset data, preventing any actual data from transmitting back to us."

"Seems like it's actually pretty incredible that this is possible," Sam confers. "Stark's in fits."

"I can't imagine," Bucky says dryly. "Do we still have drones down there? Any concern they might try and acquire the tech we're sending down?"

"Don't even say that under Stark's roof," Sam mutters. "You will summon him. I've already been subjected to four of his rants about how his tech is 'unhackable, and yet here we are, how are they doing this, as Captain America I demand you address this pressing issue, I'm telling you it is not possible, like _impossible_ , flyboy, are you listening to me'--"

"Wait," Natasha says shortly, holding up a hand. "I don't pretend to understand anything about how these powers work in the first place, but if it's unexplainable how this is happening to the tech -- could an _Enhanced_ be doing this?"

"You know, I thought Stark was just doing that thing where he brainstorms out loud, but he actually said something like that. I can't think how any organic could possibly generate something that overrides synthetic data, but then again…" Sam gestures at Steve, as though to say -- _there's a lot we don't know._ "Wanda's coming tomorrow morning anyway, guess we'll ask her what she knows."

"Okay," Bucky says, rubbing a hand over his face in frustration. "So we know there were at least three, maybe five Enhanced in the corridor. One had electricity; one with de-aging powers or whatever the fuck; and another who seems to be capable of destabilizing structurally sound tunnelwork by sheer force of will. Is figuring out the tech angle really gonna help us all that much? Because it sounds to me like we're basically just outgunned."

"This is why I think arming ourselves with information is both our best bet," Natasha says, "and a lot more like progress than the brute force option."

"Well if that's the angle we want to go on," Sam says, "it's probably a safe bet to assume there's some kind of barracks underground where at least three Enhanced with considerable abilities are grouping up. There's gotta be some kind of nexus point we can hit to destabilize their operations."

"So we find that, create a diversion, hope they're undertrained and understaffed enough to clear out, try to track the guy who did this to Steve, and then go in for the intel while we're at it?" Bucky asks, wincing.

"We gotta find the point first," Sam says, not looking any happier. "We've got the aforementioned tech problem, _plus_ we've got the problem where we probably don't actually want to harm the guy if we want answers out of him. There's no part of this that's gonna be easy."

"Great," says Bucky.

Steve looks between them again. Bucky glances over, trying to invite his question. 

"Sorry," he says, "it's just -- why would he help us anyway? Isn't this kind of assuming he's… nice? Doesn't sound that way to me."

Bucky gives a grim smile. "We'll just have to ask real nicely and hope for the best."

Steve's face falls. He doesn't need to be told any more. "Surely we don't do anything like that."

"Can't think what you're talking about."

"Bucky. Are you talking about _coercion?_ "

He sighs, deep and annoyed. "We don't have a better option."

"Weren't you the one who said we can't use their methods or we'll become them?"

"Yeah," Bucky says, rubbing his eyes, "should've guessed that one would come back to haunt me. But we can't leave you like this, Rogers."

"If the alternative is -- violence?"

"You got something against violence now?"

"You always take my actions out of context! Aren't these people being coerced into having these powers in the first place?"

"Maybe. We don't know. They might be hatemongers, Steve." 

"That's important to find out, don't you think?"

"Long term? Yeah! I agree with you. But right now, the direction we have is to get you back." There's a bite to it. He feels patience slipping away from him. "What part of 'they will try to kill you' is unclear to you? We can't afford ethics when we're talking about survival."

"Are we not safe here?"

"We -- we _are,_ but you're not gonna stay here the rest of your life."

"Until Hydra finds somewhere else to set their sights?" Steve shrugs. "Why not?"

It's a terrible, haunting question. Bucky stares in the face of all that scrappy innocence and wonders how it could've possibly taken him this long to ask to stay. "No," he says. "Sorry, Steve. But no."

"I get that big Steve is better at fighting," Steve continues. "But I have skills. It's not like I'm useless, and I--"

"Steve," Bucky interrupts, and his voice has turned soft again. He presses a hand at Steve's neck, bracing him in place the way Steve always does when it's Bucky who's unmoored. "You've seen me, right? I'm... pretty big these days. I've got a metal arm that does some damage and doesn't feel pain." He gestures around the table. "Natasha's the best trained special operative I've ever met, and I've met my share. Wilson can fly. Maximoff has mind control powers. Scott Lang has a team out west; he can make himself literally microscopic. We've got a friend who's a doctor who turns into a super-powerful green monster when we need an extra fighter. What have you really got to contribute, the way your health is?"

The shock on Steve's face makes Bucky wish he could take it back at once. "I just mean that this isn't natural," he adds hastily. "This isn't not the way things are supposed to be. I see where you're coming from, I do, but we've gotta undo this fucking thing, whatever it takes. I -- _we_ \-- need you back. Alright? We need you at full strength if we're gonna keep pushing on this fight and have any kind of chance at making progress. I'm sorry."

Steve blinks off to the side, struck by disbelief for what might be the first time. "Right."

Bucky recognizes his tone. This nostalgia is an unpleasant kind. "Hey, come on. I didn't mean it like that."

"I'm _unnatural._ "

"That's not what I said."

"Heard you loud and clear, Buck."

"Don't get like this. I'm just trying to--"

"Forget it. Just--" Steve waves a hand in the air and shrugs Bucky's hand off him. It's awful, a dreadful thing; Bucky hadn't known he could still feel this way, to be desperate for Steve's approval. "Do whatever it is you _real_ Avengers do. Don't want to burden you."

"Steve," Bucky calls after him, "Steve, come _on_ "; but Steve's already left the room and turned away, and when FRIDAY assures him she won't let him out of the building, Bucky exchanges a glance with Sam and decides it's best to let him go.

  


  


* * *

  


  


In the end they get nowhere. Three hours of bickering over half-complete maps and the only thing they manage to agree on is that they need more intel before they even try to explore the tunnels. They decide to break until they can ask Wanda for her two cents; and then Sam and Natasha retreat to their quarters, leaving Bucky to pore over the files.

Nothing new stands out at him, no matter how many times he looks over the maps; no matter how many times he compares them to sewer system, to subway, to electrical maps, trying to figure out how they connect. The only thing he keeps coming back to is that the Hydra base they were trying to sneak into when Steve got shrunk seems to be the most likely point of common origin. If one thing was made clear by their doomed mission, it's that it's far too well-defended to reasonably take down with defective tech and one fewer supersoldier. 

For all Natasha's waxing about the usefulness of intel, it strikes Bucky as doubtful that intel could possibly better prepare them for what's looking like an unwinnable mission. 

Bucky sighs and throws himself onto the nearest sofa. Halfway hateful of the silence, Bucky opts to stay where the memory of recent company lingers; throws an arm over his eyes, allowing himself a second to breathe.

For all Steve seems so able to shoulder this -- being here; living eighty-two years in the future; being his small, sickly self in a brutal, unknowable world -- Bucky finds he cannot fucking relate. Being around Steve is usually his comfort, but tiny Steve feels like so much, too much. 

Under the weight of silence and solitude, Bucky finds he misses him -- Steve, _his_ Steve, with his steadying hands and the acuity of his words -- and hates himself for it.

It's not just Steve stressing him out, he reasons; it's the whole damn situation. It's tiptoeing around the Hydra connections among them out of fear that Steve will reject him. It's the way Natasha alternates between flirting with Steve and patronizing him, and the way Bucky feels himself doing the same. It's the way Sam seems barely able to keep a grip on his temper, his usual reputation as the steadiest of the Caps having abandoned him in the face of the world's tiniest holy terror. 

It's the tech hacks, the Hydra infiltrations, the way all this feels fucking hopeless without Steve around to remind them to take it one day at a time. It's being in Stark Tower without telling Steve why it's wrought with tension for him; it's hiding the fact that FRIDAY won't respond when Bucky talks.

It's dodging all the questions about his goddamned arm.

He's just fucking tired of being haunted by his past. For all Steve is intolerably familiar to him, he's also innocent enough to remind Bucky of everything they've lost. Hydra has a knack for that, Bucky thinks: for the taking. On top of everything else, now they've taken Bucky's only comfort and replaced him with a taunting spitfire.

With no one else around, Bucky sinks into it -- sinks down into the sofa and lets himself miss Steve, stops pretending he doesn't feel alone.

There's a shifting sound at the door.

Bucky jolts to a straight spine, blinking into the brightness to see Steve at the doorway. 

"Hey," he says, hoarse.

"Hi," Steve replies, serious and quiet. "Can I come in?"

Bucky nods, shifting into a more upright position. "Yeah, of course. Food find you?"

"Yeah." Steve pads his way into the room. "It's good. Flavourful. No idea what I was eating half the time."

"Yeah, I meant to guide you through it. Sorry about that."

"It's alright." He curls up on the sofa, pulling his feet up off the floor.

An awkward moment. Bucky cricks his neck amidst the silence. 

"You try the sushi?" he asks.

"I'm not _nothing_ ," Steve replies.

Bucky's stomach drops fast. The fact that Steve's not shouting tells Bucky just how deeply hurt he is. "I know you're not nothing, Steve," he drags out. "You gotta know I don't think that."

"But you want me to just disappear?"

"That's not it at _all_. You know better. It's that you're not supposed to be here, not like this. I want to put things back the way they were."

"But I am. Here. Like this."

"Okay, but that's not--"

"You're just going to get rid of me," he says, gesturing at nothing, "to bring _him_ back, like it's nothing?"

"But -- he is you, Rogers. You already exist. I'm not getting rid of you; you've already _lived._ "

"I don't follow."

"I'm telling you you're you. I'm making you you again. There's no replacement going on here when you're already you, it's just you in a different form."

"But you won't kiss _me_."

Bucky's head hits the back of the sofa. A groan pulls out of him, long and abiding. "Of course that's what this is about," he murmurs.

"Is it that I'm not big enough? Are you just not interested now?"

"That's not it, Steve."

"Just give me another serum if you want me big so bad."

Yeah, holy _shit_ , Bucky's really goddamn tired of this entire thing. "I can't do that, Steve. Even if I could, I still wouldn't."

"Why not?"

"Just accept my answer, would you?"

"No. Tell me why not. You keep sidestepping, I just want--"

"I wouldn't put you through that again because it was a fluke." It's frustrated and awful; it reverberates around the room. "You submitted yourself to experimentation because you wanted to join the war so bad. You decided that if you couldn't fight you may as well die trying, and they _happened_ to get it right. You were an idiot, Steve, who got fucking _lucky_. They got _countless_ others wrong. They tore through innumerable test subjects. Many of them died. A lot of others survived, but at terrible cost. You haven't met Bruce Banner, but he tried to follow in your footsteps; tried to recreate the serum a decade ago. The only thing that changed in him is that he's a regular-sized man who sometimes turns into a giant green monster who is uncontrollable and built for destruction alone. He tried to kill himself once because he fucked it up so bad. Enhanced _exist_ in part because of serum experiments. Are you hearing me yet? We have no idea how they actually succeeded at making you big, Steve, and we probably never will. It's not an experiment worth repeating."

Steve's staring at him, open-mouthed and uneasy, in that way that leaves Bucky feeling raw. "So because of my 'luck' I've just stopped being of value to you, since this fluke hasn't happened yet?"

"Understand me, Rogers. Listen to me very carefully. I am refusing to put you through that hell precisely _because_ of how valuable you are to me." He shakes his head, holding Steve's eye with severity. "The best way to restore health to you, to make sure you live a long and healthy life and _stay in the fight_ , is to go _back_ to the world where all this already happened. You've been through too much, Rogers. I'd never put you through it again."

"But you said--" A twinge in his voice, god help them both. Steve swallows and looks away, and Bucky fills with sympathy. He hates himself with it, but he hooks an arm around Steve's neck and pulls him in anyway. 

"Aren't I always telling you what an amazing artist you are?" Bucky mutters against his temple. "You've got an eye for the truth of things, you know that? You see the world like no one else. That makes you incredible, Steve, just the way you goddamn are, you _have_ to believe I mean that. It's you I fell for in the first place, right? You as you are. That's the kid I want to follow to the end of the world. There's nothing deficient in you except the holes in your heart and the way you seem to have a deathwish, but in this world, Rogers -- this fucked-up, hyper-enhanced world of extremes -- we fight an enemy of such substantial proportions that they run governments -- _plural_. They limit our movements, they lock us up for no reason. They somehow manage to develop responses to our tech that even the best tech mind of this generation can't understand how they're doing it. We don't have a way forward right now because they have overpowered us, frankly, and we were overpowered to begin with. You want me to tell you painting and a strong outlook are gonna do a damn thing against that?" Bucky shakes his head. "Not anymore, Steve, I'm sorry. I'm not gonna lie to you. It might bring people joy and it might be an asset to your own survival, but it's gonna do shit all in breaking down the enemy in this particular fight."

"I--"

"That's a _blessing_ , Steve. Believe me. You don't want to be part of this world."

"I do."

"I'm not being clear. You, big Steve Rogers in 2018, literally do not want to be a superhero."

Steve blinks and recoils. " _What?_ "

"You tried to give it up, a couple years ago. Didn't take, but the fact still stands."

"Why in a million years would I ever want to leave _this_?" He circles a finger around the room.

"You did it for long enough, Rogers. You got tired." He shrugs; folds his arms over his chest. "I'm tired. Romanov, Wilson, they're tired. We're all tired."

"Well, then, take a nap and get back to it."

Bucky smiles, too genuine for his own liking. "You got a solution to everything, huh?"

"Since you mention it."

"Then what are we gonna do about you?"

Steve can only stare, at that.

"Listen," Bucky says. "You're back in the fight, even though you don't want to be, because the world took a turn and you decided you weren't about to let it burn while you stood there and watched. You fight because you have to, but not so much because you want to anymore. You?" Bucky lands a finger in the centre of his chest. "You, the Steve Rogers in front of me, _want_ to fight, but this fight isn't yours. You take a stupid risk to fight in the war of the '40s, Steve, but -- it's at least yours. It's your choice, it's your war. You weren't thrust into a dangerous situation against your will the way you were here."

"I don't care from dangerous."

"That is abundantly fucking clear to me, Rogers, but let's not forget that Hydra targets you pretty regularly with the explicit aim of trying to kill you. _You_ , specifically: Steve Rogers, one of three in a rotating cast of Captains America. They are targeting _you_ , they are _targeting you actively,_ and for good reason: you really do pose a threat. When you're big, and superpowered, and have the knowledge and skill-base to break their shit apart, you bet your ass they want you dead. You know four different kinds of martial arts on this side of the ice to boot, plus you can give me a run for my money with your regular old fists these days, and I've got this superstrong metal thing that doesn't even fucking hurt. But now they'd take you down in seconds flat. We can't have that. Health and time-displacement aside, Steve, you've gotta see how that's unsustainable."

A tense pause. Steve's looking at him, eyebrows steepled high with apprehension.

"I'm not saying this to scare you," Bucky reminds him. "I know better than to think you're afraid of any damn thing on this ungodly earth. But that's the real answer to your question. You have to go back to the way you were because you have to be able to defend yourself and the world against oppressors who've registered you as a threat. We need you big." Bucky knocks gently on his arm. "Unless, of course, you want us rallying around trying to protect you while we're also try to proceed as usual, which I feel like would only piss you off."

"It would."

"But you need protection like this. That's the reality of the situation, tell me you see that. There's another version of you who's put you at inadvertent risk so many times that he has incontrovertibly endangered you, Rogers. You need to let that guy carry the burden he's thrust upon you, because it's just not yours."

Steve traces a pattern in the sofa cushion with his finger. "You need me to let future me face the consequences of decisions I haven't made yet."

"Yes, Jesus, thank you. Exactly."

Steve nods; then, after a long time, he looks up with clear eyes. "Okay."

Bucky blinks. "Okay?"

"Okay. Turn me back." But then he swallows and looks away. 

"You gotta be sure, Rogers. For all I've been acting like you don't have a choice, I don't feel good forcing you into something you don't think is right."

"You're not. It's… there's too much, I think. I don't know how to fight a war."

Bucky nods and pulls Steve close against him. "No. You don't."

"You're wrong about one thing, though. I'm scared of one thing in all this."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"What if instead of changing me back, I just… disappear?"

Bucky's chest constricts. All of a sudden, he's scared of that too. "I… don't think that's gonna happen, Steve."

Steve looks up at him, then away again. "Yeah," he says, voice low. "That's what I thought."

They sit in silence a while. Bucky misses Steve so much, and yet can't help but feel restored by this.

"If I turn back," Steve says at last, "then I'll remember the last fifteen years of my life again. Right?"

 _I sure as shit hope so,_ Bucky thinks. "So the theory goes. I guess we don't know anything for sure."

"But it seems likely."

"Based on what we know," he says, and shrugs. "Yeah." _As likely as anything else._

"So I'd -- get to be with you. Again."

Bucky shuts his eyes tight and smirks. "I guess so, Rogers."

"Well," Steve says, and settles against Bucky's chest again. "That settles everything."

"Jesus," Bucky mutters, smiling. "By whatever means, I guess."

"I hate fighting with you."

"Me too, Rogers. Believe me."

Steve extends a foot out from where it's been folded under him and spreads his toes in the air. His skin is impossibly translucent, mottled with the crease marks from his pants and the cushion. Bucky wonders if he's fighting against pins and needles or if he's just examining himself, like it's the last chance he'll have to really live in this body.

"So do you and Sam and Natasha ever stop fighting?" he asks, after a while.

Bucky huffs with laughter. "Not really. We make do the rest of the time, but you're kinda the glue that holds us together. Another reason we need you." He rotates his prosthetic in its joint, just for something to do. "We all hate fighting with you, not least because you're usually right."

Steve smiles and watches his toes. "Do you actually _like_ them?"

"God help me, Rogers," Bucky says, "I'd fight the world in their defense."

" _Really?_ " Steve wrinkles his nose at him. "You don't sound like you care about each other at all."

"Listen closer if you get another chance. We sound like you and me used to."

Steve seems to grant him that. "It's strange being this honest with you, now that you mention it."

"We're exclusively sincere now," Bucky deadpans.

"Really?"

"No."

"Ha," Steve says, smiling.

"It is different," Bucky agrees. "Stuff we've been through… we don't deflect so much anymore. Don't really disagree on anything big; most of our fights are like this, trying to talk the other one into staying out of trouble."

"So you became more like me, is what you're saying."

Bucky fights another smile. "Please. You're more like me, if anything."

"Sure, Bucky. I see how it is."

"I'm older."

"You can say that again."

Bucky looks at his face and rolls his eyes. "Look, forget I said all that. We still fight like hell so far as you're concerned."

"Still trying to protect me, huh?"

"To my dying breath if I can help it."

It's too honest, too heartfelt. Steve's head starts to rise in response, but he gets afraid halfway through and ducks it down again.

"Forget I said that, too," Bucky mutters.

"Don't try to tell me you don't love me, then," Steve says.

Bucky shuts his eyes in regret. For all he preaches about filters, it seems he could use a few of his own. "It's not simple, Rogers. That's all I've been trying to say."

Bucky thinks Steve's going to derail into the world's worst seduction again, but he just shifts and gives a short sigh. "So what's gonna happen to me?" he asks. There's an edge to it -- forged by anxiety, softened by resignation. "This version of me, when I change back?"

Bucky looks at him. "I don't know."

"Do I go back to 1936? Will I remember this?"

"I don't know if you'll remember. I don't think you'll go back in time, exactly. You were transformed into this, it's not like you were literally pulled out of 1936."

"You don't know that."

"I'm pretty sure literal time travel isn't real."

" _Pretty_ sure."

Bucky smiles. "You're right. I don't know a thing."

"I'm always telling you that."

"I know you are. I oughtta listen."

"So I might go back and tell you everything. How much you love me and all that."

Bucky rolls his eyes. "Guess you might. Guess we'll have to take that risk."

Steve smiles and looks at Bucky's metal hand where it rests in the crook of his elbow. Bucky braces himself against the inevitable question; the one he's dreaded most since Steve woke up.

"Bucky."

"Yeah."

"How did you lose your arm?"

He sighs, resigned. "I fell."

Steve doesn't seem surprised he didn't offer more. "You didn't have the metal arm in the photos in the Smithsonian."

"No."

"So it happens after the war."

"More or less."

"Did it--"

Bucky looks over at him. Steve's still looking at his toes, as though suddenly shy. 

"Hurt?" Bucky finishes for him.

"Yeah."

"Yeah, Rogers. You think losing an arm is a walk in the park?"

"Well," he says, and swallows; tries to redirect. "How…"

For all Steve isn't afraid to face his own pain, he always gets this way about the pain of others. Bucky saves him from it, when he can, just the same as Steve would do for him. 

"Got a whole bunch of hardware in there now," Bucky says through a sigh, knocking on his own shoulder. "Hard to make metal act like an arm, so they did all kinds of artificial nerve replacements and all that. Gets real haggard if I don't take care of it, but mostly it's okay. I'm lucky, in some backwards way. To be given something that functions this well." He beats back an ironic laugh. "It took a lot of someone's money to figure this out."

"Not yours?"

"No."

Steve seems to sense this is dangerous territory. "Does it hurt now?"

"No. Doesn't feel pain unless we take this plating off and play with the nerves direct."

"Is that hard?"

"Very."

"Well, that's good."

"Guess so."

"Does it -- feel like anything? When you touch… me?"

Bucky sighs. He can't decide if this question is easier to answer than where he got the arm or not. "Yeah, Rogers. Don't ask me how, but the scientists who made this thing figured out how to make the skin act like skin in every other respect. I get heat cues, pressure cues, textural cues, same way my right arm does."

"How can that be if you don't feel pain?"

"Dunno. Guess the tech sends more nuanced signals than biology knows how."

"Does it take getting used to? I mean, it must."

"I get an upgraded model from time to time. It always takes a while to adjust. This one's more responsive than I'm used to." Bucky gives a hint of a smile. "When I first got it I took a bag of coffee beans in my hand, just casual, and put a little too much pressure on it. Exploded _everywhere_. Total disaster. Took three days to clean up."

Steve smiles at him, full with affection, and this, in part, is where the difference lies: Big Steve had only looked at him with worry when it had happened, taken Bucky's lines of profanity out of context, asked him if he'd wanted help; gotten Bucky's snapping dismissal in return.

"Bet you loved that," small Steve says.

"It wasn't my favourite day," Bucky admits.

"So are these common?" Steve points at the prosthetic.

"I'm pretty sure this is one of a kind. Costs too much to make more."

"But then… why? Why give you something so advanced?" Steve gestures at the room. "Was it Stark?"

"No. It was first given to me for nefarious purposes. The end result is…" He shrugs. "More than liveable. There's no small bit of irony in the fact that I use the tech for good now."

Steve stares at him. Bucky knows he's said too much.

"Who?" Steve says, quiet. "Who gave it to you?"

"Nevermind where I got the early ones," he mutters, looking at his own flexing hand. "I got this one from the King of Wakanda. He's on our side, too."

"The _King_ of _Wakanda_ is an _Avenger_?"

"That's one of those stories too long to tell, Rogers, but I wouldn't lie to you."

"I believe you."

"Yeah, I know you do." Bucky frowns at him. "What's that about, by the way?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why do you believe everything I say, even though it's the most outrageous thing in the world?"

"Because I can see it on your face that you believe it."

Bucky squints at him, incredulous. "That's a terrible reason."

"Not really," Steve says, casual. "I can always tell when you're lying. Even when you are, I can see you're just trying to protect me. I'd get mad about it except that I can also tell when I'm out of my depth. Contrary to your beliefs." He looks over to him, sidelong. "I trust you."

Bucky studies him a while. "Alright," he says slowly. "When the hell'd you get so wise?"

"I was always wise." He looks up, deadpan. "You're the one always telling me I've got an old soul."

Bucky snorts laughter. "Boy, am I ever regretting it now."

Steve smiles; looks away again. "So what's your hangup about my being so young," Steve asks the floor, "if you think I'm so wise?"

Bucky groans, head hitting the back of the sofa. "When? When will we have gone over this enough?"

"Bucky," Steve says, voice low, and this time he's looking right at him. "I'm going crazy for you."

"Then settle down."

"I look at you and I just -- you're so goddamn-- you hold yourself some _way_. Sitting at that table, sounding like you know what you're doing…"

"I do know what I'm doing, and I'm not doing this."

"Bucky, I just -- I want you so bad. Do you know what you sound like? You've found -- you know how to -- _Bucky_ , you're so--"

"Let's go to sleep, Steve," Bucky says, exhausted. "It's late, you've had a hell of a day."

"Sometimes I look at you and I don't see _my_ Bucky. You don't have his bluster, your shoulders don't curve like -- but then I look harder and you're always _there_ , under the surface, under all that hair." Steve pauses to give a laugh, throaty and genuine. "Your hair was made to stay long, Buck."

"Yeah, I know it was. Listen, liking something isn't sufficient for--"

"In so many ways you're just the same, Bucky, I--" Steve's tiny, stupid fingers wrap around Bucky's bicep, and at first it was like he was going to make a point. "Oh, wow. I mean -- how can -- how are _you_ \-- I just wish you'd show me, Bucky, I..."

Bucky hits his head three times against the back of the sofa and then gathers Steve's fingers from his arm. "Stop this," he says. It's gentle, _too_ gentle; he's too tired to be angry. "I know how you feel, Rogers. I've been there. It sucks, I know. But I'm telling you: it's not happening."

Steve's eyes go at once to where the steel of Bucky's fingers wrap careful at his hand. Bucky rolls his eyes and lets go, pressing his fingers over his eyes instead.

"I see the way you look at me, Bucky," Steve says, low and bashful.

"I was in love with you once," he cuts out. "Guess I slip up. That's on me, but it doesn't mean--"

"It's me you're still in love with, though. Isn't it?"

"No, Steve. Now I'm in love with the asshole who looks like you, only bigger."

"But I'm him. Isn't that what you said?"

"No, Steve. I said he was you. That's a different thing."

Steve stares at him, trying to wrap his head around it. He reaches out to wend his fingers between Bucky's, because he is nothing if not brazen as all hell. 

It's tempting to throw him off again, but one glance at Steve's face -- as full with apprehension as it is with anything else -- and Bucky decides he can at least offer this small comfort. "I understand where you're coming from," Bucky tells him, letting Steve work their fingers together. "You gotta believe that. I get why you want this."

"I want you."

"Yeah, that's clear."

"Don't you want me? If you look at me like that--"

"Listen to me. It's not an equivalent exchange. I've lived all that already, Steve. Try to see it from my perspective. This is your first... anything, but in my head we've been at this -- even just counting you in this body, in this form, at this size -- for years. I've got you memorized, Rogers. I know every angle of you."

It's the wrong thing to say. Steve's eyes widen; they settle on Bucky's fingers, on his lips, Steve's own mouth parting with interest. 

"So this feels a bit dirty to me," Bucky presses on, wincing. "Opportunistic, you know? You just pop back to your younger form and I, what, pretend like it's all right to seduce you just because I've already done it?"

"Yes!"

" _No._ "

"You're so _noble._ " He spits it, like an insult.

"I'm just trying my hand at being a decent fucking person, Rogers. I don't care from nobility, believe me. You at 18, talking me up like that? I hit just one of your buttons and you're _gone_. There's a weird power thing here that I don't like."

"Okay," Steve says, rapidfire. "I saw it from your perspective. Can you see it from mine?"

"I'd sooner not," Bucky says, but Steve barrels on anyway.

"You'd be teaching me everything I already know. I'll come to know it anyway. They're things that are already going to happen. Really," he reasons, tone filling Bucky with peculiar dread, "you'd be providing yourself with a public service."

"Really? And how's that?"

"I get to go back to the future -- or, the past, or -- well, regardless: if you teach me now, I get to give that knowledge right back to you."

Bucky blinks, then bursts into hacking laughter. " _Steve._ "

"Convincing, right?"

"Not remotely. Clever, though, I'll give you that."

Steve smiles and looks away. He wiggles his fingers in Bucky's grip, apparently trying to take as much from this one point of contact as he can. "Well, it was worth a shot."

"Stubborn as usual."

"That's me," he says with barely a pause. "So did we do anything other than jerk each other off?"

Bucky shuts his eyes. "You don't _ever_ rest, do you."

"Because I can think of a few other things I'd like to--"

"Stop right there."

"Did we, um--"

"Rogers!"

A hint of a smile, fleeting. "You won't even _talk_ about it?"

He knows that voice; knows the way he gets quiet when he wants something, _really_ wants something; when it roots in him, lives in him, drives him in a way he can't even help. 

"No," Bucky says anyway.

"I'm just," Steve says, and swallows as he pulls gentle at Bucky's hand. " _Bucky._ Ever since you told me this was possible I've just wanted to _try,_ there's been so much I've been shoving away, and now that we _can_ you're telling me _no_? I'm not asking for much, I just want to see what it feels like to..." His thumb brushes at Bucky's lip. 

Bucky bats it testily away. "Just live with the knowledge that you'll get yours in time." Steve cocks his head and looks at Bucky's mouth as he says it, and Bucky feels a jolt in his gut. "Listen to me, Rogers," he says, more intense, and turns to look him dead in the eye. "I almost _envy_ you that. You get to discover all this for the first time with someone who's in the same boat. You get to learn what works and what doesn't with someone who thinks the world of you and who's learning you just the same. You get to do all this with someone who'd do anything for you, Steve, and it's the best damn feeling in the world. Don't spoil that with me. I'm not the person who loves you. He is. And whether or not he's figured it out yet, Rogers, he also really, really fucking needs you, so don't--"

"Bucky."

"What?"

"Aren't you… him?"

"Aren't I -- what, the Bucky who loves you?"

"Yeah." Steve's eyelashes sit low on his cheeks. "If Big Steve is me, then aren't… you… him?"

Bucky blinks at him. "No, Rogers. I can't tell you why, but no. I'm not the same man."

"You seem like the same man to me."

"I'm _not_."

"So you… don't." Steve looks up, too. "Love me."

Bucky sighs and tilts his face to the ceiling. "I didn't say that."

"So you don't _want_ me, then."

"That's not -- you're missing the point. I'm saying don't ruin this with me."

"I wouldn't be ruining anything, Bucky. It would still be you."

"You don't know _me._ "

"Sounds like you'd do anything for me no matter what."

"You are," Bucky breathes, covering his face with his free hand, " _impossible_. You are _beyond_ impossible. Impossible looked at you and left because there was no competition--"

He never finishes because Steve kicks up a leg and straddles him as neatly as if he'd done it a thousand times -- plants his knees flush against his thighs against on the sofa; clenches his hands in Bucky's shirt.

It's a dirty trick; Bucky's not expecting it, and his basest response is one of tactical retaliation. Bucky grabs at Steve's thighs, hard enough to hurt, but reason enters his head in the second that follows. 

His hands soften in time with his breath. One of Steve's shaking hands comes to brush fingers over his brow; Bucky's eyes close, remorseful, as his thumbs brush where they were pressed in Steve's thighs.

"Sorry," Steve mutters, not sounding very sorry at all.

"You're not, but you should be," Bucky grinds out. "We don't live in a simple world anymore, Steve. I almost threw you off me. I could've really hurt you."

"But you didn't."

"I'm saying I almost _hurt_ you, Rogers. Pay attention." Bucky's fingers skate over where they'd pressed hardest into Steve's legs as though to say: _Maybe I already did._

"I'm fine," Steve says, reading the question.

"Great. Now get off."

Steve laughs. "If you say so."

Bucky blinks at him. "Oh, come _on_."

"One kiss." That smile at his lips, frankly fucking lurid. 

Bucky's eyes flicker down to Steve's mouth. His voice drags. "Steve." 

"I'm not trying to -- I just think you want it as bad as I do." That red mouth, that wonderful mouth; Steve warm under his hands, adrenaline in his veins. "I see you, Buck. That's all. I just--"

 _God,_ he's tired; his heart's slamming in his chest. Steve's thumb traces around Bucky's lower lip as he says it and he misses Steve so bad, so bad.

"I really," Steve says, "I just think there must be a reason for all this." Steve's hands set flush against Bucky's jawline. His thumbs follow the jut of his cheekbones, against the grain of days-old stubble. "You know. For me to be here."

"Don't you fucking pull the providence card on me."

"Why would I be sent here if not to know that I'm -- _okay?_ That you're okay, that we survive the shit economy and the liquor boards and the war and come out the other side -- _okay_?"

"You weren't _sent here_ , first of all, and second of all this happened because some Enhanced on contract with Hydra decided to use his powers on you. Third of all, we didn't come out the other side _okay_ by any--" 

"If he's me, and I was him," Steve muses, fingers at his skin, "then I'm him now."

Bucky shakes his head. "I have no idea what you're saying anymore."

"I'm saying it's okay for you to want me."

"I want _him_." Bucky finally snatches at his wrist, gentle. "I miss him like goddamn crazy. You're such a -- _damn_ you, Steve, I want _him_. If I can't orient myself to you I don't know where the hell I'm..."

It's beyond honest, it gets away from him; Bucky fills with regret. He looks to the ceiling and folds his hands into fists against the sofa. "I'm not used to navigating this world alone anymore. I just--"

"You're not alone," Steve interrupts.

"It's not the same."

"Okay." Steve's hands reach for Bucky's; pull at his fingers until they unfurl. It's such a Stevelike expression of simple, unabashed affection that it sends Bucky spiralling out again. "But you're not alone." 

"Rogers."

Steve traces a thumb around Bucky's mouth again, brushing at stubble, and it's intimate, it's _familiar_ \--

It's still a surprise when Steve leans in and kisses him.

He's been worn down; he's lain himself bare. For a few pulsing seconds, Bucky doesn't move. He can't. His breath's stuck in his chest, and so is Steve's. Steve's hands are clenched in his shirt and soft at his jaw and Bucky's are tensed against his thighs, and Steve's heart beats so hard that he's nearly swaying on top of him. 

Bucky wants to take him from this, from this terror -- from the sense that he's stuck in this feeling alone. Because for all he's tried to distract himself from it, Steve was right: Bucky _wants,_ just the same.

A few pulsing, unmoving, self-hating seconds pass. Nothing happens, except this tension wringing taut.

Then Bucky gives in and pulls Steve down.

One hand rests in the small of Steve's back and the other sets at the back of his neck and Bucky kisses him in the ways he remembers, from the early days, best he knows how. Passion coaxes Steve away from the tight thing he's offering into the kind of thing that strings a wall of fire up between them, and his form is wired but he takes what Bucky offers.

Steve opens to him, gives a moan wrested from unspeakable depths -- long, loud, lousy with want. Bucky's buzzing with it; he's been sucked in. His hand slips under Steve's shirt to set against skin and there's a familiar tightness to Steve's breath, a yearning shudder in his chest that Bucky hasn't heard in such a long time. Steve would love to be taken in just this way, Bucky knows; they could just as easily be making out on Sarah Rogers' couch in their old shared apartment, years ago, only it's --

\--only they're not--

Steve tries to chase him when Bucky pulls away, but Bucky sets a hand on his chest and holds him back. 

"Damnit," he whispers, heart hammering heavy.

"Oh my god," Steve mutters. He touches his fingers to his lips.

Bucky grabs him by the waist and moves him bodily to the opposite side of the couch, suddenly furious. Steve makes a breaking sound in his throat, but he goes where Bucky moves him, apparently too stunned to do anything else. 

Bucky stands and wracks an anxious hand through his hair, pacing in short lines. When he looks at Steve again, he sees him staring up at him.

"Damn you," Bucky says.

"Thank you," Steve says, enraptured.

"Stop that," Bucky replies, short. "It shouldn't have happened."

"I'm glad it did."

" _No!_ God!" Bucky spins away with his hands over his face. "It's -- this is on me, alright? I'm an idiot, I'm -- I just need you to stay there, Steve. Can you do that? Can you sit still for once in your life?" He hears the plea in it and sees Steve does too. "Just stay there and don't follow me. Tell Sam and Natasha I've gone when they wake up, but don't wake them. Can you do that one thing for me, Steve, please?"

"Gone where?" Steve asks. He watches as Bucky moves around the room, taking a tablet in one hand, stooping with the other to collect the shield where it's leaned against the bookshelf. "Bucky," he says, sounding suddenly nervous. 

Bucky's gut lurches; his fists clench as his feet drag to a halt. 

"Where are you going?"

Bucky grants himself leeway enough for a single glance back. He sees Steve sitting there, gobsmacked and vulnerable. "I'll be back soon, Rogers," Bucky tells him. "Don't worry about a thing."

Then he sets off to get Steve the hell back.

  


  



	2. Part II

* * *

  


  


Steve is six foot two and two hundred pounds, and he's never been more relieved in his life.

Memory floods back to him. He blinks awake; tests the tensile strength of his hands, his arms, his legs. It seems he remembers… everything. He remembers the mission going south; he remembers waking up in a hospital. He remembers not knowing a goddamn thing about the twenty-first century. He remembers being small again.

He remembers kissing Bucky like an idiot. 

He looks around the room and remembers not knowing a thing about it but trying to anyway, hoping it'd start to make sense to him eventually. It makes sense, now. It all makes a little _too_ much sense, if he's really honest, but he's not about to complain about having his memory back. He could stand to feel a little less embarrassed, but apart from that…

_"--People say I'm an old soul."_

...Oh, _god._

Steve gets the feeling he's gonna be living in the shadow of the last three days for a long damn time.

There's a pile of clothing on the chair by the bed with a post-it over it, blank except for a smiley face. He knows Natasha's handiwork when he sees it. Steve gets up from the bed and stretches, full of form, delighting in every strong, stubborn inch of him; in the way his heart beats on time, the way air fills his lungs without too much work.

He dresses quickly, but he's still pulling the shirt on over his head when Natasha appears in the doorway.

"Well," she says, looking relieved. "Hey there."

Frankly Steve's just relieved she's even talking to him. "Hey."

"How are you feeling?"

"Great! Or, well... no, not great. Glad to be back in my body, at least."

She gives him a kind smile. "Memory's back, then?"

"I feel embarrassed enough about how I was acting as it is, so I _hope_ I'm remembering everything."

"I guess the cure works, then."

Steve cocks his head. He had been steadfastly assured that everything with the cure was absolutely under control. "Was there concern that it wouldn't?" 

Natasha avoids his eye; turns her head and calls down the hall for Sam. "He's been worried," she informs him.

"Because of the _cure that might not have worked?_ " Steve says again, eyebrows steepled high.

Natasha winces. "Kinda hoped we could just let that slip on by."

"No, actually, I generally like to be apprised of the experiments being conducted on me."

"Let's just say it was a bit of a hail mary."

"Yet you told me -- and I quote -- that this was 'definitely going to work' and that I would be 'safe and sound on the other side'."

A sheepish smile. "I was kinda hoping you wouldn't remember that."

Steve shakes his head, but finds himself unable to muster actual anger. He is, if nothing else, beyond glad to be back to _this_. "Well, hail-mary or otherwise, I guess it worked. Wanda and Stark managing to work together long enough to immortalize the thing?"

The smiles flickers, then falls wholly off Natasha's face. "In a way."

Evasive again. Steve frowns, suddenly worried. "Natasha -- we're okay, right?"

"Aw, Steve. Of course we are."

"I didn't exactly go out of my way to conceal my… whatever."

"Eighteen-year-old boner?"

He stares. "Don't bother sparing me any embarrassment."

Natasha clicks her tongue and steps forward, gesturing Steve forward into a hug. "Is it really any better that you felt that way and never said anything?" she asks, cheek against his chest.

He frowns as he wraps his arms around her. "Should I... have?"

"Funny," she deadpans, hitting him on the shoulder. "I'm just glad to see you in one piece. All we really did was infuse a bunch of blood from the Enhanced until it was compatible with your system, so… you know. Form your own conclusions about how worried we should've been."

Steve raises his eyebrows. "You gave me an untested blood transfusion?"

"Hail mary," she says again, and shrugs. "We screened it for anything that might kill you--"

"Except mutation!"

She gives a thin smile. "We wanted to keep that in if we had any hope of reversing the quantum effects on your body."

Steve had spent the entire previous day crying to Natasha about Bucky, talking to Wanda about Enhancements, and trying not to punch Stark in the face when he came down apparently purely for the sake of laughing at him. He really hadn't been involved in the development of this cure, choosing instead to trust Sam and Natasha when they'd come down and convinced him to give it a shot. 

So this is all new information to Steve.

"Quantum effects, huh?"

She makes a face. "Don't make me try to explain it."

"Oh thank _god_ ," comes a voice from the door. Steve looks up to see Sam standing there, blinking at him as though he's never been more relieved to see him in his life. 

"Hi," Steve says.

Sam steps forward without further hesitation and envelops Steve in a bear hug. "Please never do that again."

Steve grins and rocks cheerfully back and forth. "Missed me, huh?"

"You have no idea. Tiny Steve is like a tiny, electric, radioactive version of you. It's terrifying. You are a picture of serenity compared to that guy, you know that? Realizing now I don't give you near enough credit."

Steve smiles and claps a hand at his shoulder. "Listen -- do I owe _you_ an apology? I remember most of what happened, but I can't shake the feeling that some of what I said might've, I don't know, insulted the intelligence of everyone in the room."

"What? No, you're cool with me. Just so long as you promise _never to do that again._ "

"Noted." Steve nods solemnly, but his good mood ebbs away as he realizes no one's called for Bucky. "I guess Bucky's still pretty pissed at me, huh?" he says, scratching at his neck and wincing. "I haven't seen him since he left to get the guy in the first place."

A terrible pause follows.

"Don't freak out," Natasha says.

Steve's stomach drops. He feels himself paling as he looks between them. "What happened?"

Nobody answers him. 

Steve grabs at Natasha's wrist, reading the pursed look on her face with gripping terror. "Natasha. What. Happened."

She winces, and Steve steels himself for the worst. "I think it's better if we show you."

  


  


* * *

  


  


Steve stares at Bucky where he lies in the bed -- at the way his hair falls over his brow, at the smooth cut of his jaw.

Young, rugged, and inexplicably unconscious, the Bucky in front of him can't be older than 21.

Bucky's prosthetic arm rests on the opposite side of the room, unneeded; his left arm, nude in Bucky's armless tac uniform, appears perfectly intact. Natasha tells him it responds to stimulus as it should -- that there's no apparent trace of Winter Soldier hardware or enhancements in his body at all.

Somewhere on the other side of the shrill panic resounding in his ears, Sam and Natasha are trying to talk to him.

"From what we could tell when we found him, his plan was basically just to go Winter Soldier on the situation and hope for the best," Sam says.

"There had clearly been a struggle," says Natasha, "but it was more or less cleared out when we got there; we think everyone else must've gotten spooked. The Enhanced--"

"Name," Steve says shortly.

A pause. "Huh?"

"What's his name. The Enhanced."

"Keaton's all we got out of him."

"Anything else we know about him?"

More hesitation. Steve turns his head to Natasha incrementally. "Not much," she says hurriedly, reading his mood. "Let me finish explaining before you try to bite my head off."

Steve returns his gaze to Bucky's unfathomably young face and stoops, on a whim, to dig out a spare blanket from the under-the-bed storage.

"The Enhanced -- Keaton -- was unconscious and half tied up when we got to the scene," Natasha continues. She watches as Steve kicks the drawer closed and drapes the blanket over Bucky's thin form. "He had a pretty severe head wound, likely a concussion. Looks like Barnes wasn't about to let him get away, but a singular moment of distraction and Barnes wound up unconscious, too, for obvious reasons."

"But you got him," he says, pulling the blanket up under Bucky's chin with careful attention. "Or I'd still be small."

"Yeah," Sam sighs, arms crossed. "We got him."

Steve glances over at his tone and straightens. "But?"

Natasha gives him a tight, dreading smile. "He died."

Steve turns to her, abrupt. " _What_?"

"We think," Natasha says, lips tight, "that he's been operating with Hydra as a much younger version of himself. When we found him he was… uh…"

"Like a hundred," Sam interjects.

"He was old," Natasha says grimly.

"Stark's best theory is that with the concussion Barnes gave him, he reverted to his actual age," Sam says. "Same concussion gave him trouble putting himself back to that younger age again, so he stayed old."

"He lived long enough for us to synthesize and get the blood into you," Natasha says. "Then he seemed to just... die of old age."

"You get any information out of him first, at least?"

"No," says Natasha. "He was pretty out of it, and maybe not just from the concussion. His level of confusion makes me think he was being coerced by Hydra to work for them. Wanda went into his head to extract what she could. She still thinks he didn't come into these powers accidentally -- that they were given to him by Hydra, the same way hers were. She and Stark managed to be civil to one another long enough to figure out that if we introduced it the Enhanced blood to your system, your body might correct itself without any ill-effects."

"Sounds like more than a stretch," Steve mutters.

"It was," Natasha says, "but it worked."

"There was nothing Keaton gave us willingly," Sam says. "Some rambling you might find interesting. Putting things 'the way they used to be,' and other lines you'd expect from a Hydra agent. It's just not clear whether it was a line he'd been fed or if it was something he really believed."

"Hydra might've broken him," Natasha says.

"So, hang on," Steve sighs. "He seemed how old?"

"A hundred wasn't that far off," Natasha says.

"Could've been born around 1918?" Steve asks. "My age?"

"Sure."

"So he might've been reverting himself to… the age he was in 1936…?"

Sam's eyebrows fly up. "Oh."

Steve looks at Bucky and decides, yeah, he could definitely be 19. He rubs at his eyes just this side of too hard. "How is any of this even _possible_?"

Natasha looks at Sam. "You feel like you understand the science here better than I do?"

Sam sighs and looks as lost as any of them, but seems committed to making an effort. "From what I understand -- god, for once I wish Stark was here -- when you have a cohesive unit of particles that cannot be separated, those particles are entangled. They form a unit." Sam points at him. "You're Steve. Steve is made of entangled particles."

"Okay."

"Little Steve was also made of entangled particles, and was also Steve."

"Okay," Steve says, frowning.

"Keaton basically pointed at the entangled unit that is you and told the particles to become an earlier form of Steve. The particles that make up Steve then communicated with each other and, based on the energy he was introducing to you, made a decision -- albeit one very much under the influence -- about how far back to revert you while still keeping you intact."

"That sounds," Steve tells him flatly, "insane."

"Yup," Sam agrees. "Time has something to do with it? Stark got excited and started talking about string theory at warp speed so I started to lose the thread, but I guess that's why you didn't have your memory. You were literally reverted to you at 18, not just a 100-year-old Steve wearing an 18-year-old's body. Your particles… followed… strings… through spacetime?" Sam shakes his head. "Time fuckery. Skeeves me the hell out."

"Don't forget the black holes," Natasha reminds him.

"The discussion definitely got out of hand," Sam says, pained. "Point is, we think it reversed in you when the blood of the quantum guy was pumped into you because your body is a goddamn temple of regulatory rhythms. We were concerned it wouldn't work the way Wanda and Stark had hoped because little-Steve didn't have the serum to correct some of his more prevailing ailments, but it turned out whatever quantum magic this little asshole pulled--"

"Don't speak ill of the dead," Steve mutters.

"--kept big-Steve connected to little-Steve via the same pathways that made you little in the first place. Basically when the magic blood was introduced into your system, the time pathways opened up again and the serum corrected little-Steve until he became big-Steve again. Guess this is the state you're supposed to be in -- present day, memories intact."

"Keaton, meanwhile, was probably suffering some ill-effects from making himself young for so long," Natasha says. "Tony seems to think you can't have those strings pulled for too long without feeling some kind of physical strain. That might be why he died so quickly after reverting to being old, or why he wasn't able to revert back to being young again."

"So this de-aging is potentially dangerous," Steve says.

"I mean, keep in mind that Keaton was an old man. His systems were probably trying to break down for a long time."

"We're sure the blow to the head didn't just kill him?"

"Always possible," Natasha admits. "Stark mentioned wanting to open him up--"

"We can't perform an invasive autopsy on a man who's been taken over unwillingly by Hydra," Steve cuts in.

"We don't know whether he's been indoctrinated or not," Sam reminds him. "If it means we figure out how to put Barnes right again? That change your mind?"

Steve stares at him, then runs his hands over his face, defeated. "Okay. Listen. You did the blood infusion with Bucky?"

"Yeah," Sam says, "but Keaton died on us first, and for whatever reason it didn't work the way it had for you. Pretty sure Keaton had to be alive for this to work."

"It's not literally magic blood," Steve says, skeptical.

"Well, let me put it this way," Natasha says. "Obviously Wanda can't mind-control anyone if she's dead."

"So… enhancements only work if there's someone behind them to will them to work."

"Or some life force activating the mutation maybe?" Sam says. "We really don't know a goddamn thing, but that seems to be the gist of it."

"So the time-travel mechanism in Keaton's blood, whatever it is, died when Keaton did."

"Your guess is as good as mine, but yeah. That sounds right to me."

"If that's the case," Steve says, gesturing to Bucky, "why didn't Bucky turn back to his proper size when Keaton died?"

Sam only looks at him and shrugs. "Who knows? Once you've been transformed, maybe there's some resistance to changing back. _You_ started screaming like you were being tortured to death on your way to becoming big Steve again, so..."

Steve's brow furrows. "Really?"

"Just for a few seconds," Natasha says, smiling softly. "Sam was worried. You morphed into big Steve a few seconds after that, so it must have been useful."

Steve raises his eyebrows and looks at Sam, who only looks at him grimly. "Please don't ever do that again," he repeats. 

"Well," Steve says, trying for flippant, "for what it's worth, that sounds pretty consistent with what I went through when I took the serum in the first place."

"Sure," Sam says, dryly. "What doesn't kill you makes you a superhero, I guess."

"So it sounds like what we need," Steve says, "is some way to make spacetime or whatever want to stop pulling the strings that are making Bucky like this. Something like a synthetic version of Keaton's mutation."

"Basically," Sam says, sighing through his nose, "yeah."

Steve nods, then shakes his head. "That doesn't sound exactly possible."

"Welcome to this whole damn week," Sam says. "Even Stark seems not to know what the hell's going on. Wanda's being pretty tight-lipped right now, but I get the impression she doesn't understand the science at play here either. We do have Scott Lang and Hank Pym on the line -- or Stark does, anyway -- but Pym's concerned about intellectual property talking to any damn one of us in Stark Tower." Sam rolls his eyes, though Steve knows for a fact that under less dire circumstances he'd be arguing on Pym's side. "He doesn't want to tell us what kind of physics are involved in that crazy suit Lang's got lest we try to recreate it, but it sounds like that tech might be able to seriously help us in trying to figure out how to harness the effects of a mutation synthetically. Stark actually seems invested in helping us out, fortunately -- guess the problem's too interesting not to get involved."

Steve rubs at his eyes. "I'm sure that'll go great."

"Well, he called in Banner for support," Sam says. 

"Banner's coming here?" Steve looks to Natasha, who merely shuts her eyes and shakes her head like she has no comment.

Sam nods. "Hopefully he'll act as the liaison, since somehow I doubt Stark and Barnes are gonna be able to stand each other even when Barnes has no idea what he's done. Wanda, meanwhile, is making inroads with some local contacts to find out what she can about Hydra's training of these Enhanced. She seems pretty gung ho about trying to get to the bottom of their experiment ring. She's not going in," Sam placates in response to Steve's furiously opening mouth, "or we'd be with her right now. Networking only, we made her agree. We're waiting for her to come back before we try to figure out what comes next so we can work with her plans in trying to figure out ours."

"This is a lot of mobilization."

"Anything we can learn about Enhanced, especially if Enhanced are working for Hydra, is gonna help us going forward," Sam says. "It's a team job with team benefits; no sense wondering why we're getting a team effort."

"Plus people care about Barnes," Natasha plies, looking at Sam pointedly.

Sam sighs. "Plus people care about Barnes, _as a useful member of this team._ "

Steve looks between them, feeling a pinched smile draw on his face. "Thanks."

"Don't thank us yet," Sam says.

"We'll find something, Steve," says Natasha. "We won't leave him like this."

Steve looks down at Bucky -- at his thin, pale face, at the way his brow pinches in -- and tries to think about how this is going to go. Steve's always been pretty adaptable, but Bucky… 

He runs a hand over his face and turns to Sam. "Alright," he sighs. "You okay to take point on this? You've got more info than me anyway. I'm not copping out, I just want to be here when Bucky wakes up."

Sam nods. "Should be fine, support pouring in as it is. Might need you for fieldwork."

"Say the word."

Sam claps a hand on Steve's shoulder, but then leans in, gaze sincere. "Listen. You remember everything from when you were small?"

"Pretty much," Steve says, bracing himself.

"Then I don't need to tell you that we just watched Barnes lose himself to nostalgia and worry in equal parts. Don't let the same thing happen to you."

Sam's saying this, and yet he already knows better. Steve only stares at him, shaking his head, searching for something to say and coming up short.

Sam gets the picture. He squeezes his hand at Steve's neck with some resigned smile. "Well, it's good to have your lost-cause ass back here, anyway."

Steve tries to smile back, then looks down at Bucky: more peaceful in sleep than Steve's seen him in years. "Yeah, Sam," he mutters, ribs growing snug with worry. "It's good to be back."

  


  


* * *

  


  


Bucky's scrambling to sit up before Steve's even registered he's awake. 

Steve jumps up from his chair, extending a placating hand. "Hey. Hi. Take it easy, all right? You're not in danger here, you're safe."

Bucky blinks at him, then around the room. "Where am I?" he asks, and god, _god_ , to hear him so young.

"Uh," Steve says, blinking something back. "You're, uh…"

"What happened?"

"You, uh…" He clears his throat. "You took a bit of a spill, Buck."

Bucky frowns at him. "Do I know you?"

A smile cracks horrible onto Steve's face. "Guess I look a bit different than what you're used to."

Bucky' expression evolves, slowly, into stunned incredulity.

" _Steve_?"

Those deep blue eyes, wide and accusing. The last time Bucky had to figure out who he was in this new body, he'd been drugged and abused and desperate for hope, but now…

"Hi," Steve says, and swallows. 

Bucky squints at him, like he doesn't quite believe what he's seeing. "What the hell _happened_ to _you_?" 

"Well…"

"Boy. Some dream I'm having."

Steve lets that wash over him. "Uh, right. Say, Buck, what year do you think it is?"

"1936."

Steve nods.

"Why?"

"No reason."

Bucky blinks, as though he can see the lie all over his face. "Huh."

Steve's not sure why he's amazed that Bucky's gone from unconscious to reading him in seconds flat, but here he is regardless. He finds himself licking his lips around a nervous smile. "Buck... listen for a sec. I just want you to listen and try to believe me, alright? This is gonna be a tough pill to swallow."

Bucky, too, seems to fight a smile through his apprehension. "Sure, Steve. You're massive. This room makes no sense. These things come in threes."

Steve looks around. He hadn't thought to try to make the surroundings more believable, but then that hadn't exactly worked with Steve when he'd been taken out of the ice six years ago. "Well, to start with, it's not 1936 anymore."

"Well, obviously."

The certainty of Bucky's doubt suddenly strikes Steve as hilarious. He can't shake the grin from his lips as he barrels on. "I swear I'm telling the truth."

Bucky nods, some circular motion, knowing smile showing he clearly believes he's in on the ruse. "Uh huh."

"Bucky -- it's 2018."

Bucky's face slackens just for a second, but then, with entertainment wrought straight from youth, his grin turns wide again. "You mean 8 o'clock? God, Steve, let this army thing _go_ , would you? You're never gonna get in." He frowns; cocks his head. "Well, maybe you will _now_..."

Steve feels his features retreating into sobriety. "Bucky."

"Hey," Bucky says, smile fading. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." Steve's voice isn't right. "Well, I mean -- you're wrong."

"I'm wrong, huh? Still picking a fight with me even in dreams. Okay, sure, Steve. I'm always wrong according to you."

"No, I mean -- you're not supposed to be here. I mean, you _are_ , but -- well, no, you're not."

Bucky nods at him, eyes skating over his broad dimensions. "I'll be whatever you want me to be, Rogers. Just say the word."

Steve is taken utterly aback by the baldness of it before he remembers that Bucky thinks this a dream. "Oh, sure. I mean, no. Wait." He makes a frustrated noise in his throat. "How the hell did _you_ explain this to _me_?"

"Dream Steve is confused," he mutters, as though narrating to himself.

"Let's start over."

"Sure. I gotta close my eyes or something?" He does, then opens them as though waking up for the first time. "Whoa, Steve, is that _you_? How long was I out?"

"Oh, brother."

"Where am I??"

It at least has the effect of leaving Steve smiling again. "You really gonna be difficult about this?"

"Like you're not difficult about each and every thing you do. Can't even stay small in my dreams."

"Yeah. It's a regular curse."

"I wouldn't say that." Bucky looks him up and down again.

Thrill lights in Steve, just briefly. _God,_ how can he be so _young?_

"Come on, Rogers." The tone of it is wrested from so far back in time that Steve actually aches. "Let's go have an adventure or something. Make the best of this bizarre fucking dream, whaddya say?"

"Bucky…"

"How's it feel to be so big? You still get asthma?" He throws the blanket off him, and Steve realizes too late that he's still wearing the tac uniform Bucky wore to track Keaton down. "Whoa."

"Buck."

"Okay. All right." He prods at himself. "Odd choice, but sure."

"Bucky, just listen for a second. Remember how I said it wasn't 1936 before?"

"Sure, Steve. What year is it?"

"The year," Steve says, "is two thousand and eighteen. It's eighty-two years later, Buck."

Bucky stares at him, then looks down at his clothes and around the room. "Uh huh."

"And -- you've been in an accident."

"It's an accidental something."

"See -- you and me, we got launched into the future--"

The grin reappears all at once on Bucky's face. "Sure! Time travel. Had that dream before."

Steve nods grimly, realizing he's making no headway. He takes out his phone and hastily punches in the passcode, hoping visual aids will help.

"What's that?" Bucky asks, scientific curiosity overtaking skepticism.

"It's, uh -- a telephone."

"No it's not."

Steve brings up the touchpad. "See here? Zero to nine. You press 'em instead of dialling now."

"Press _what_ , the glass?"

"You got it." Steve goes back to rifling through pictures.

"And what are those?"

"Pictures."

"No they're not."

Steve looks at him, helplessly entertained. "You gonna reject every answer I give you?"

Bucky's grin is shit-eating. "Of _course_ not, Steve." It's plying, too sincere; meant to get a rise out of him. The crook of his tooth juts out over his lip. Steve flickers his gaze to Bucky's left arm and doubles down on his photostream, trying to stay on this side of sanity. 

"I'm gonna show you something and I want you to try out trusting me, all right?" Steve smiles at him, trying for hopeful. "It's you in your future, in this present day. You look a little different so don't be alarmed, but I swear it's you, Bucky; I swear you're really alive in 2018. We work together, you and me, but you were in an accident and your -- body -- went back in time. You were basically… restored to your 1936 model." Steve swallows and shows him the picture, one of his favourites: taken on a walk by the Hudson when Steve had noticed Bucky leaning toward the water, illuminated in the sun. The wind had tossed his hair aside just a slight and Steve had taken the shot before Bucky'd had time to object: orange and glowing, awash in the light of encroaching dusk. 

Bucky's eyes narrow. He takes the phone in his hands, then looks at his fingers like he somehow expects something to have rubbed off on them. "I mean… I _guess_ ," he mutters. "Why does he look like that? Is he a vagabond?"

"No. You're not a vagabond. We live together."

"Hey, all right! You finally give in?"

Steve's smile is sad. "Ma died a long time ago."

"Guess so. It's 2018, after all."

"Bucky."

"They don't have razors in the twenty-first century?" he asks, squinting at the phone.

"You like having a beard," Steve tells him. His voice has gone soft on him. "Like your hair long, too."

Bucky looks up and runs his fingers through his hair -- like a comb, jutting his chin out, aiming for charismatic. It's one of those things he used to do that would drive Steve _wild_ , that used to keep him up all night: thinking about it, trying not to think about it, trying to stop wanting him. 

"Hell of a mane, all right," Steve says, smiling faintly.

Bucky squints at the phone again. "He looks tired."

"It's been a long road." Steve takes it back from him before Bucky figures out how to leaf through at risk of discovering evidence of his own metal arm. "You starting to come around?"

"I'm already around," Bucky says cheerfully. "Anything's possible in a dream."

Steve sighs resignedly and finds something to lean against. "Right."

For all Bucky's nonchalance, Steve can see the concern flickering in the corners of his eyes. "You sound different."

"Dropped most of my accent a while ago. You, too. We both sound pretty generic now."

"I sound like me to me."

"You sound like -- yeah. You sound like you used to."

"Yours is coming out, now that you're thinking about it."

Another thin smile. "Yeah. That happens sometimes."

Bucky seems to have accidentally stumbled on taking this seriously again, but he realizes it at the same time that Steve does and places that careless smile right back on his face. "So how'd you get to be so big? Late growth spurt or what?"

"Uh..."

"How'd we get sent into the future?"

"Well, it's--"

"What the hell is that?" he asks, pointing at the flatscreen across the room.

Steve presses his hands together in front of his mouth. "Hmm."

"Captain Rogers," says FRIDAY.

Bucky jumps, fists braced against the bed. "What the hell is that!"

Steve shuts his eyes. "Yes, FRIDAY."

"Master Stark is wondering if you and Mister Barnes will be joining the others for dinner, or whether you will be, and I quote, 'eating Barnes out, oops, I mean, eating out with Barnes'--"

"FRIDAY," Steve interrupts, rubbing at his brow.

"Yes, Captain."

"Relay the message that I'm busy trying to convince Bucky that it's 2018. I'll throw something together for us both later."

"Very well. I believe there will be leftovers."

"Thank you. And for Bucky's sake, if you could minimize interruptions…?"

"I assume you don't wish the request to be passed along to Master Stark." 

"Uh, no. I don't."

"Then I shall do my best."

"That's all I can ever ask. Thanks, FRIDAY."

The computer disengages, and Steve slowly drags his eyes to Bucky's shocked face, full with dread.

"What," Bucky says, "the _hell_ was that."

"Well--"

"First of all," he cuts in, "why are you _Captain?_ "

Steve covers his face with his hands and groans quietly.

"Who _was that_? Where is she? Was that a telephone too?"

"It's not a telephone."

"Master _Stark?_ You don't mean that lunatic who's been in the news with those so-called floating cars, do you?"

"It's hard to--"

"Who are 'the others'!"

" _Bucky._ I'll answer your questions."

"You better!"

"But you're gonna have to start believing what I tell you."

Bucky opens his mouth, but seems to force himself into calm a second later. He crosses his arms over his chest, his ankles setting over one another on the bed. "Sure, Rogers," he says, boasting with false confidence. "I'll believe you."

"Okay," Steve says, doubtful but committed. He forces himself to refocus. "Well, for starters, I was right about the Nazis."

"Alright," Bucky says, as though he should've expected that.

"They got pretty aggressive, and the United States joined the war against them, so I went out of my way to join the Army so I could be a part of the fight."

Bucky's nod is slow to begin, but becomes vigorous. "Sounds like something Steve would do."

"But they wouldn't take me as I was."

"Of course not. You're puny."

"So I got big." He gestures at himself.

"And how's that work exactly?"

"Uh…" He winces. "Science?"

"Science," Bucky repeats flatly.

"It's hard to explain. It kind of started this domino effect of… look, suffice to say that I'm also really strong and really fast and also really healthy. Hey -- no more asthma."

"You live forever, too?"

Steve blinks. He hasn't ever actually wondered if he ages at the usual rate. "Uh."

"Hmph." Bucky looks disappointed. "Dream Steve's out of answers."

"Well, no, I mean… it seems possible. I was frozen in the ice from 1944 to 2011, so I'm really only about 33. I won't know for a while about the immortality thing."

"Frozen in the ice."

"Yyyyes."

"You don't age in the ice?"

"Apparently not."

"And you survived the hypothermia."

"It would seem."

"And I suppose I was frozen in the ice, too."

"Actually… yes?"

Bucky sighs, looking annoyed. "Alright. Same timeframe?"

"No. You, uh… You went into the ice in 1944, like me, but you woke up in 2014. Plus there's a few years before that you don't remember. Amnesia," Steve says, and smiles shakily. "Nothing to worry about. You'd be about 34 in the photo."

"A few _years_ I don't remember."

"To be fair, Bucky," Steve reasons, "right now there's about 82 years you don't remember."

Bucky blinks. "Because it's 2018."

"Yeah."

"So you're telling me I went back in time fifteen years, eighty-two years in the future."

"Sounds about right."

"And how's all that happen, exactly?"

"Mmmmagic?"

Bucky stares. "Dream Steve spouts a lot more bullshit than real Steve does, and that's really saying something."

"Stop calling me Dream Steve," Steve mutters. "Look, I'll tell you. It won't make any sense to you."

"And we wouldn't want that," Bucky says, shaking his head.

"I got hit with -- a kind of magic that also turned me into," he gestures at Bucky, "1936 Steve. Recently. Obviously it wore off."

"You were small again?"

"Sure was." Steve leafs through his photostream until he finds the picture Natasha took -- of himself, small and fragile as he's ever been, talking animatedly in his hospital bed while Bucky looks on. With his long hair and his prosthetic arm out of frame, Bucky looks begrudgingly delighted; even seems to be trying not to laugh.

"Hell," Bucky says, taking the phone back again. "I'm impressed with myself. This is _thorough._ "

"The dream, you mean?"

"Great detailwork."

"Yeah." Steve sighs. "You wanna start considering this might not be a dream, Buck?"

"Flaw in your logic, Rogers."

"Oh?"

"Does this guy remember all the in-between?" He points at himself in the camera. "Future me?"

"Yeah. Most of it."

"And I'm supposed to be the same as this guy."

"In a way."

"Then how come I don't remember any of the in-between?"

"The... magic… that made this happen--"

"Oh, right. The _magic_."

"Would you prefer 'the science'?"

"No," he says, sounding affronted at the suggestion.

"The magic, then -- it literally seems to replace you with your past self. Small Steve didn't remember anything after 1936, either, but I remember everything now, including from my recent stint small." He points to himself in the photo.

"That sounds," Bucky says, " _incredibly_ fake, Rogers."

"Yeah," Steve sighs, leaning back against the wall. "It really does."

"So how'd we go from there--" he points at the phone -- "to here?" He points between the two of them.

"Everyone thought it would be best if I was restored to the state I was meant to be in, in this timeline."

"Who's everyone?"

"Ah… well, here in the future, we run a team. Or, I guess we coordinate with a team?" He shuts his eyes tight and sighs. "You know the Nazis?"

"Sure."

"They're still around."

"No kidding!"

"We fought them in that war in the '40s -- longer than the Great War, even -- and we're still fighting them now." He spins a finger around the room. "This is our base of operations."

"Okay," Bucky says, and nods. "Sure, alright. So… it's 2018 and you're an army captain, because you're big, which happened by… science… magic."

"Yes." 

"So in the middle of a war against the Nazis, we both got put into the ice and transported to the future, and now we're both fighting Nazis as part of a Nazi-fighting team in 2018, only we keep getting made into our younger selves."

"Yyyyes."

"By Nazis?"

"Actually," Steve says, "yes."

Bucky nods for slightly too long. "With you so far," he says, voice rich with irony.

"Okay. So--" Steve's not even sure why he's still explaining at this point, except that he's not sure what else to do -- "in the present, you -- the guy in the picture -- went off in search of the guy who made me small in the first place. You were trying to find an antidote."

"Alright."

"And you succeeded."

"Hooray!"

"But in the process the guy did this to you." Steve gestures at him.

"Aww."

"So I'm cured, but now we don't know how to get you back to the way you're supposed to be in 2018, because the guy who cured me… died."

"Right. Okay." Bucky nods thoughtfully, lips pursed.

"How's my credibility?"

"Piss poor, I gotta say."

Steve smiles. "Figured as much."

"Good story, though."

"Well, I'm glad you're entertained."

Bucky points at the phone again. "You gotta at least see the irony here."

"Oh, I see it."

"I bet you'd have asked a thousand and one questions when you woke up on this side of the time-jump."

"Actually, no."

"What?" Bucky shakes his head. "Now I _know_ this isn't real."

"I asked a few, don't get me wrong, but… I mostly just believed you. You explained things to me, and I looked around and decided it had to be true. I was living it. No sense fighting that."

"Come on. You'd fight a train if it whistled at you wrong, but this you're alleging you didn't fight?"

"You made a convincing case, trying to explain all this to me. If it was fake, denial wouldn't have helped anyone with anything. Besides that, Bucky -- even in 1936, you were the only one I had left to trust. I wasn't about to throw that away because something seemed implausible."

Sobriety strikes sudden at Bucky's face. "Yikes, Rogers."

"Sorry."

"Just pulling a sharp turn into the feelings stuff, huh? Lighten up already! It's a beautiful day in 2018."

Steve pulls a face between a smile and a grimace and Bucky blinks at him, startled into realness.

"So," Bucky says, trying to shake off whatever bad feeling he just got. "You got an answer for God, too?"

Steve is confused by the change in subject. "You mean... is there one?"

Bucky points to the ceiling. "The dame in the ceiling who sounds like your mom."

"Oh! Right."

"What do you mean, _is there one._ "

"Well…"

"Don't tell me you're agnostic now!"

Steve barks laughter. "Worse. Atheist."

"Yow! What happened to you, Rogers?"

"You know I gave up believing when your dad passed."

A flicker in Bucky's smile again, but then it's hastily replaced. "I always thought you were just saying that. Kept catching you muttering prayer under your breath in tough situations."

He shrugs. Bucky's not wrong. "Well, it's hard to jump so much time and still keep your beliefs."

He gestures to Steve's phone. "So-called future-me agree with you?"

"Yeah," Steve says, regretful. "More so."

"Sounds bleak."

"Well…"

Genuine annoyance strikes over Bucky's face again, as though an automatic reaction to Steve evasiveness. "Stop that."

"Sorry."

"The hell does that mean? Straight answers or nothing, Rogers, when have you ever shied from the truth of things?"

He shrugs, as though to convey the situation's complications. "Thought it was all fake anyway," he says, with quiet irony.

Bucky clenches his jaw, but if Steve saw panic spark in his eyes it's already gone. "It can still be bleak if it's fake," Bucky says. He points to the ceiling. "Explain Irish God already, would you? Sounds like your dream, not mine."

Bucky always did know him. Steve can't help his fondness. "Well, she's a computer," he explains.

"She's a what now?"

Steve holds up his phone. "This is a computer." He gestures to the TV. "That has a computer in it."

"What do you mean, 'computer'?"

"You remember when you told me all about that differential analyzer they put together in Boston?"

"Sure."

"This is a super-advanced version of that. This makes calls, holds photos… it's all just data now, transmitted and displayed. Like an advanced telegraph."

The explanation seems to actually land. Bucky doesn't even try to deny it. "That's pretty wild, Steve. I can't believe I came up with that."

There's an edge of nervousness to it. Steve smiles, trying for comforting. "Irish God is a computer by the name of FRIDAY. She runs the house."

"She -- okay, sure. She runs the house. I believe you. Where are we again?"

Steve hesitates. "Stark Tower."

"Oh, _sure_! The crazy flying car man has a house full of computers!"

"Actually, his son Tony does."

"No time-traveling ice for Howard?"

Steve shakes his head. "Just you and me."

"Lucky us. Anyone else get made younger, either?"

"Nope."

"So did all this happen because I joined the Army with you? Is this a weird Nazi retribution thing?"

A pause. "I mean..."

" _Rogers._ "

"You didn't exactly _volunteer_ to join the Army."

"I got conscripted," Bucky guesses.

Steve gives a fragile smile. Bucky groans.

"Believe me, Buck. If I could save you from it, I would."

"We at least volunteer for the time-travel freezing or we get conscripted into that, too?"

"We did not volunteer to be sent to the future, no."

Bucky sighs, apparently burdened by recurring seriousness. "Where is this Stark Tower, then? Are there just flying cars everywhere now?"

"Manhattan, and no. Seems the physics behind them aren't exactly sound."

Bucky's eyebrows raise, as though he should've expected that. "At least _that's_ familiar."

"You wanna look outside? It's not that familiar."

He frowns. "Damn."

"We can't catch a break," Steve tells him.

"You went through all this yourself, did you?"

"Sure did. More than once."

"Well, I guess I'll trust you then." Then he shrugs, as though to say: _It's a dream. Why not?_

Steve forces a fragmented smile. "Listen -- you hungry? You've gotta be hungry."

Bucky looks relieved for the subject change. "Starved."

Steve straightens; presses his smile away as Bucky gapes at how tall he stands. "If you wanna come with me I'll find you something to wear."

"Yeah," Bucky says, and then finally steps out of bed after him. "Sure thing, Steve. Get the impression you're gonna have to explain some things to me. Pants work the same way?"

"More or less. Jeans are big now."

"As in blue jeans?"

"Most popular casual wear."

"Get out."

"Nobody wears suspenders anymore. All belts."

"No one wears a hat anymore either, I suppose."

"Got it in one."

"Hell."

As they turn down the hall, Bucky rotates his left shoulder in its socket. Steve's expression goes slack before he rotates his right shoulder just the same. _A boxing stretch,_ Steve scolds himself, and turns to face forward again. "Welcome to the 21st century, Buck," he says, and to his fortune he sounds damn near normal. "You have any questions, I'll be your guide."

"Why you and not the dame in the ceiling? She sounds like my type."

Steve snorts. "No she doesn't."

"Huh?"

Steve shakes his head and points them into a room. "Nevermind."

  


  


* * *

  


  


Steve stares out the window while Bucky changes his clothes, trying to figure out how the hell to go about this. 

He's pretty sure a visit to the Smithsonian isn't gonna be nearly as useful for Bucky as it was for him, particularly since he then has to figure out how to explain that Bucky's still dead as far as official records are concerned. He thinks of bringing up select histories on everything that happened between 1936 and 1944 to see if it helps him piece together a narrative that makes sense, but that certainly won't help to fill him in on what happened in the middle. 

Besides all that, Bucky's always been more of a doer than a thinker. Steve decides his best bet is to try to integrate him into the present to the fullest extent possible without freaking him out. A select involvement in their actions -- not so secretive that he has no idea what's happening around him, but not so detailed as to reveal what happened to turn him into an irritable ex-assassin with popularity issues -- seems the balance to strike. 

So he'll introduce him to the team; involve him in the discussions. It's just that… for all he wishes Bucky would acknowledge this as reality, there are some elements of it Steve definitely wants to shield him from, without having any idea how.

Bucky's voice from behind him. "Hey, is this right?"

Steve turns; can't quite prevent the smile on his face to see Bucky, young and modern at once. "Yeah," he says, stepping toward him. He tugs at the loose shoulders of Bucky's henley, somewhat vindicated at seeing him drown a little in clothes too big for him.

"Sure I don't need a tie or an overall or something?"

"People wear less these days."

Bucky's eyes linger on Steve's arms and chest. "I see that."

"You don't have to dress like me. You can't, actually. Bucky's much bigger than you on this side of time. You're just not gonna fit his clothes."

"He's not _much_ bigger," Bucky mutters. "Yours might fit me, though, way you're busting out of that shirt. They don't make clothes in your size in the future?"

"They make 'em," Steve smiles. "I am on the larger side though."

"Boy," Bucky says, but then his face collapses in on itself. He stops mid-sentence; looks to the floor.

Steve reaches forward and undoes the top button on Bucky's shirt, and if it intensifies the tension in the room it at least gets Bucky's attention. "That all right? Looks a lot more modern."

Bucky scratches at the back of his neck and looks to the side, then takes several steps back. "Sure," he mutters, then systematically starts folding at his sleeves, as though to give himself something to do. "No ban on forearms?"

"No," Steve says, quiet, regretfully transfixed by Bucky's left hand. He sees a dash of pink on Bucky's cheeks just below where his eyelashes are set and searches for something to do to distract them both; reaches for a hoodie where it's thrown over a nearby chair. "Bucky of the future wears a lot of sweatshirts," he says, holding it up then tossing it on the bed beside him. "This is his, or… yours, I guess. Put it on if you get cold."

"I'm never cold, Rogers. You're thinking of you."

Steve purses his lips. "Right."

"Say, you got any pomade?" Bucky runs his fingers through his hair. "Let my hair grow too long, can't stand this in my face."

"Oh, sure." Steve turns to the desk and digs hair product out from a drawer before stepping toward Bucky, rolling a small amount on his fingers. "Hold still."

Bucky ducks his head to the side; catches at Steve's wrist before it lands in his hair. "I can fix my own hair," Bucky tells him, with no small hint of suspicion.

It's not that Steve had forgotten Bucky was always this way. It's just that this isn't exactly what he remembers, when the old nostalgia hits.

"Just trust me, would you?" Steve says, deciding matching his combativeness will feel familiar to them both. "Give you something modern so you don't stand out like a sore thumb if we need to step out. You can't just slick your hair back anymore, Buck, it'd look ridiculous."

"It's all fake, Rogers!"

"Not to me it's not. If it's so fake to you, let me do what I want."

Bucky blinks at him, but lets go of his hand after a furious beat. "Fine."

"Thank you."

Bucky lets out a slow, deep breath and tilts his head up to let Steve work. "Don't know why I've left it this long," he mutters, trying to cut through whatever tension blossoms as Steve's fingers brush gentle at his hairline. "Working so much, no time for the barber."

"You should take a break now and then," Steve says, raking his fingers through his hair. "Too hard on yourself."

"Just trying to keep us all above water, Rogers."

"And you're doing a bang-up job. Give yourself some credit."

Bucky looks annoyed, as though Steve knows nothing about him. "That what you think? I'm behind on the month and it's barely even started. School is... expensive. Ma's already turning down meals, plus the girls deserve more than they get." He shakes his head, leaving Steve tutting and fixing his chin in place. "I have no idea how Pop funded all four of us for all those years."

Steve is surprised to hear him talk that way. Bucky's never this forthright about finances -- except, it seems, when he thinks it's fake. "Well," he says shortly. "He didn't, really, did he?"

Bucky pauses, at this. "No," he mutters. "Guess not."

"How's that debt coming down?"

His eyes flit up to Steve's. "How do you know about that?"

"You tell me about it in the future." Steve bends to meet his eye. "Or, if you're still thinking this is a dream, then I don't know about it and this is all in your head anyway."

"Right," Bucky says, sounding more confident. "Then I guess you already know it's going abysmal."

Steve smiles, helplessly fond of his steadfast denial. "You'll pay it down. Sooner than you think, too. Got a raise coming, just hang in there. Hey, tip from the future -- you'll even fund my way to art school and Rebecca's home ec training in a few years without it burdening you overmuch."

"I will, huh?"

"Yeah. You know what you're doing, Buck. You're gonna figure it all out just fine."

Bucky's head raises, just by an increment. Steve feels the room change, as though a new mood's been painted over them. 

"Quit moving," Steve mutters, adjusting Bucky's head back into place.

"Sorry," says Bucky.

Silence spills between them. Steve moves his fingers, maybe unnecessarily, through the bristles of hair near the back of Bucky's neck. For all Bucky complains about its length, it's so much, so _unusual_ , for Steve to see his hair so short.

"How do you always do that?" Bucky mutters, after a while.

"Do what?"

"Make things feel possible."

Steve gives a soft smile. "Well, let me put it this way. I decided I wanted to go to war, so I grew ten inches."

"Right. No limits to your force of will. Forgot for a hot second."

Steve grazes a thumb along his hairline to get a rogue strand to do what he wants, and Bucky snaps his gaze up at him at the gentle touch. 

They hold eye contact for a long, intimate second; then Bucky staggers backwards, staring at Steve like an animal caught in a trap. 

Steve blinks after him, half confused, half hurt. "Hey," Steve says, voice low. "Sorry."

Bucky clears his throat. He doesn't re-approach, but still seems to be trying for a casualness that he doesn't quite manage. "Don't be," he says, falsely nonchalant. "Just feeling a little off."

"Come back and let me finish then."

"I don't think so."

Steve shrugs, at a loss. "Okay." 

They stand apart.

"This feels different than usual," Bucky says eventually. There's a strain to his voice, like the honesty hurts on its way out of him; he's looking at Steve in a way that makes Steve ache for him.

"Than usual? What do you mean?"

"Well, sometimes you--" He stops; clenches his teeth. "Well... you get real soft with me in dreams, sometimes, Steve."

Steve feels himself soften. "You dream about me sometimes, huh?"

"Don't start."

"Okay."

"This isn't -- that. This feels different, than that." Bucky blinks at his feet; a pause grows long, cloying. "Trap," he mutters, to no one in particular.

"Trap?"

"This is a trap." He gestures between them. "This feels like a trap."

Oh. 

… _Oh._

"It's not a trap, Bucky," Steve says, and swallows.

"That's just what they'd want me to think."

"They? Who's 'they'?"

"They made you big so I'd respond to you." Bucky shrugs. "Not that it matters, only… how do they know?"

"Who's 'they,' Buck?"

"The -- government. Liquor board, employer, I don't goddamn know -- maybe the Nazis. Are they here? Are they in America?"

"I mean -- in a way, their successors are, but not in the '30s."

"Come on, Steve. You're supposed to pose as my ally, here, give me answers."

Steve blinks. His heart is pounding. "I _am_ your ally, Buck."

"Then aren't you supposed to say, 'gee, Bucky, do you really think this is a trap' and help me brainstorm on this? This is my head, after all."

"Bucky..."

"It's not my game. But it _is_ my head." He gestures at Steve. "They must have found you in here, then; that's how they know. But if that was the case, they'd already know _enough_ , so what's the point of..."

"Let me -- let's talk about this another way."

Bucky seems not to hear him. "All that time spent unearthing conspiracies on the economy and now you're saying this all makes sense to you?" Bucky gestures around the room. "Be real, Steve. Help me figure this out."

Steve throws caution to the wind and strides toward him, taking his shoulders carefully into his hands. "Bucky," he says, voice low. "I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna pretend that this is a dream when it's not. For both our sakes I wish it was, but it's not. This is real. You are here, 82 years in the future. If this was some kind of conspiracy, they would have just recreated the settings you know well to make it as believable as possible. Wouldn't they? I'm sorry to tell you, Bucky, but all of this is real. What you feel for me--"

"Don't," Bucky says harshly. "Don't do that. I won't respond."

Steve shuts his eyes. Then, though it takes tremendous effort, he withdraws his hands and forms them in fists by his sides. "Then regardless of what else you believe, Bucky, believe that in all possible worlds, in all possible scenarios -- simulations, or whatever -- no matter what you say to me, I'm on your side." He gestures at nothing out of frustration alone. "And believe, too, that I know more of what's going on than you do, regardless of what this is. I'm gonna guide you through working for a solution. Alright?" He swallows, forcing calm. "Can you trust me a little, here?"

Bucky looks at him carefully, but ultimately nods. "Alright."

"Thank you," Steve sighs. "Do me one more favour."

Bucky rolls his eyes. "Yeah," he says, short.

"Just -- keep an open mind to the possibility that this is real. Talk to me like I'm really Steve; talk to everyone like they're real people. Just in case you're wrong -- in case this feels so different than your usual dreams because it's _not a dream_ , Bucky -- it'll be best to treat people like friends. Right?"

The tension's drained out of Bucky's face, replaced by something like exhaustion. He looks very, very young again, and yet so much like himself it hurts. 

"Sure, Steve," Bucky says, and swallows. "I can do that."

Steve nods; pulls his eyes from Bucky's reluctantly and casts around for a mirror. "Here," he says, grabbing one off the desk and holding it up. "This hairstyle acceptable to your discerning tastes?"

Bucky glances at Steve, solemn, but then examines himself in the mirror. "Narrowly," he mutters.

"Good." He puts the mirror away and suddenly feels the frantic need to start solving this problem. "Well. Unless you have some other questions, you may as well come with me to meet the team so we can get started on this." He nods toward the door and starts shambling toward it, and after a second Bucky follows, shoving his hands humbly into his pockets as he walks. "They're all smartasses; sorry in advance. And--" he holds a staying hand at Bucky's chest as they leave the room, suddenly wincing-- "try to behave yourself, all right? You've got nothing to prove to anyone in there."

An edge of cockiness sparks on his face, flickering and then complete, and Steve forces his eyes away from the curve of his lips. "I always behave myself," he says, too smoothly.

Steve shakes his head as he turns away. "Starting to see why your temper was always so shot when I was small."

"I'm beyond patient with you, Dream Steve."

"Quit calling me that, would you?"

But Bucky is smiling again, so that's at least something. 

Steve pauses by the open door to the conference room and gestures Bucky inside, and from the first second of entry, Bucky's posture shifts immediately to something far more horrifically recognizable.

"Why, Steve," Bucky says, voice buttery smooth. "You didn't say anything about _dames._ "

Steve pinches his fingers to his eyes. He can't believe he didn't predict this. " _No._ "

Bucky's smile hitches higher. "What do you mean, _no_?"

"These are not _dames_ , Bucky."

"Look like dames to me."

"No. They are your coworkers. They are not date opportunities, they are not here to be charmed. Natasha and Wanda are here to work toward a solution to this situation on _your behalf_ , so you will be gracious and nothing else. I mean it. Do not approach these women for dates."

Bucky nods at Natasha. "What's your name, doll?

Steve grabs Bucky by the shoulder and steps into his line of vision. "What did I _just_ say."

"That I should treat everything like normal," Bucky says, insolence quirking at his lips. "This is me being normal."

"Well, I've changed my mind. Don't do that."

But Natasha's mouth pinches to the side in some concerning smirk, and Steve has the terrible feeling this is all about to go off the rails. 

Bucky looks at her in just the same way, smile spreading over his face. "James Barnes," he says, nodding past Steve's imposing form. "I'd introduce myself properly, only my companion here insists on trying to fight fate."

Steve pinches at his eyes. "Enough. I mean it. Treat her like you'd treat me."

"A creature that gorgeous? I couldn't possibly."

Steve looks to the ceiling, then steps reluctantly aside. "Everyone, Bucky; Bucky, everyone." He gestures at Natasha. "Don't hesitate to hit him if he needs it."

"That apply to all of us?" Sam mutters to the conference table.

"As a personal favour to me, Sam, leave it to the dames."

Over by Natasha, Bucky has fully approached and is bringing her hand up to his mouth. "Charmed," he says, brushing her knuckles at his lips. 

Natasha continues to smirk at him as she introduces herself properly. Steve can't tell whether she's gonna let this play out or kill him first, and decides he doesn't want to find out. He turns to Wanda, desperate for anywhere else to put his attention. 

"Hi," he says, smiling at her thinly.

"Hi yourself," she says cheerfully, throwing an arm widely over his shoulders in greeting. "I'm glad you're feeling better."

"Yeah," he says flatly. "Better's the word." He rubs the tension out of his eyes, then puts a hand on her shoulder. "Hey -- listen. I owe you an apology."

"You don't," she insists.

"I do. I remember the way I was with you, tripping over myself. I never exactly had filters around women as a kid -- not that that excuses--"

"Relax, will you? You barely said anything."

"I _tried_ to say a lot."

She cocks her head. "Did you? What kinds of things?"

Steve stares. Wanda stares back. It takes Steve far too long to figure out that this is a joke at his expense. 

He clears his throat. "Let's move on?"

"Let's," Wanda agrees grinningly.

"Good. Hey, thanks for trying to explain all that about Enhanced to me. I can't say I understood it all that well, but it helped me at the time."

"I'm glad. You gave me some interesting information, actually."

"Oh?"

"I have… theories."

Steve waits, but she doesn't expand. Steve has the impression she needs more time; he nods his understanding. "You and Stark getting along okay? It can't be pleasant having to work with him."

"You're not wrong," she mutters. "Fortunately we share a unifying scientific curiosity that seems to…" 

Wanda trails off, gaze sticking to the side. Steve frowns, concerned, but when he looks over he sees Bucky watching the two of them with interest, half-smile on his face as he slides a cigarette out of the pack Natasha's offering him. 

"Can I help you?" Wanda asks him.

Steve points at the cigarettes. "What the hell is that?"

Natasha shrugs, a shade too innocent. Steve has the impression she bought them as soon as she realized a young Bucky probably smoked them. 

"You two make a cute pair," Bucky says, meanwhile, gesturing between Steve and Wanda. "Been together long?"

Wanda exchanges with him an alarmed look. "We're not together," they say with simultaneous immediacy.

"You sure?" Bucky says, planting the cigarette between his lips. "Looking like that, Steve, I'd think it's about time you get some."

There are some moments, like this one, when Wanda reminds Steve so much of himself that it hurts. They both laugh with the same dry, empty tone at Bucky's remark. "Wanda's my former student," Steve tells him hastily. "She's a sister if she's anything."

"Student, huh?"

"We're a Nazi fighting team, remember?"

Bucky frowns and shrugs, shifting his gaze back to Natasha. "So you and he, then?" he asks, nodding toward Steve.

"Bucky, give it a rest," Steve sighs.

Natasha, worse than looking entertained, seems to be into playing exactly the kind of game Bucky's setting up. "No," she says lightly. "It's not that I'm not interested, mind you."

"Well, who could blame you? Way he looks." Bucky starts searching himself for a lighter before rolling his eyes to the ceiling in remembrance that he's not in his usual clothes. "I mean, I'm no schlub -- maybe you'd agree."

Natasha smiles at him generously. "Sure."

"But ain't no one can compare with that."

Despite apparently choosing Steve's impressive dimensions as a subject to bond over, Bucky and Natasha have not broken eye contact with each other for long enough even to blink. Steve feels himself growing tired very quickly.

"Sam," he says weakly, closing his eyes. "Tell me we have something to go on."

"I literally became incapable of thinking about anything other than punching Barnes in the face the second you mentioned it," Sam tells the conference table.

"So does that make you available?" Bucky asks Natasha, cigarette still hanging from his lips, unlit.

"How do you know _you're_ not seeing anyone?" she shoots back.

"Nope," Sam says. "I'm zoning out again."

Steve runs his hands over his face. "Bucky, focus. We're here to work."

"I am focused," Bucky says without turning. "That's a good point -- Natasha, is it?"

"You're good with names." It's the fakest compliment she's ever given.

"I try," he says.

"You don't have to out-seduce him," Steve calls to Natasha.

"Just having a conversation," Natasha says, still staring at Bucky.

"You got a light?" Bucky asks.

"No smoking indoors," says Natasha.

"That's a shame," Bucky says. "You never answered my question."

"I got a light."

"I meant the other question."

She blinks her false innocence. "Which question is that?"

Bucky's lip quirks, genuinely endeared. "You're good."

"I try."

"So you're _not_ available."

"I might be available, I might not be. What's it to you?"

"You're a very beautiful woman."

"Bucky," Steve says, pained.

"Just speaking the truth," Bucky says, still looking at Natasha. "If you may or may not be available, could it be that you and me are--"

"I thought this was a dream," Steve interrupts loudly.

"Doesn't have to be a boring dream," Bucky says.

"Was it boring when you thought it was a government conspiracy?" Steve asks.

Sam looks up and mouths _government conspiracy?_ in Steve's direction. Steve rolls his eyes and waves him off.

Natasha shakes her head, smiling. "It's not a dream," she says, softening unexpectedly, "and for what it's worth I'm not seeing anyone. _You_ are, though."

Bucky's eyebrows steeple. "That so?"

"I'm intrigued that you think it's me."

"Guess I got a thing for redheads."

Natasha hums. "I thought it was blondes."

The smile flickers sudden off Bucky's face. Steve steps forward, though whether it's to pull Bucky or Natasha out of the conversation he's not sure. 

"Sure, they're alright," Bucky says, averting his eyes. "So you're telling me I gotta smoke this outside?"

"There's a balcony at the end of the hall to the right," Natasha says, handing him a purple lighter from out of her pocket.

Bucky frowns at it a minute, then successfully flicks it on after a try or two. "All right," he mutters. He looks up at Steve, hint of pink in his cheeks. "Sit tight, Rogers, no need to escort me."

"I'm not asthmatic anymore," Steve says. "It's no bother."

Bucky's not looking at him, but his eyes pinch with annoyance. "I know how to smoke."

Steve sighs his resignation and ultimately waves a dismissive hand. "Just bear in mind we're on the 56th floor, all right? Don't panic when you step outside. Manhattan's a lot different now, but we're under pretty tight security here. You're not in any danger, remember that."

Bucky stares at him for considerably longer than seems warranted. "Sure," he says, tone indiscernible, and then turns suddenly to Sam. "We had a poor introduction. You'll have to forgive me. I didn't mean to be rude, it's just that I become incredibly single-minded around beautiful women." He extends his hand. "James Barnes."

Sam blinks down at the hand Bucky's outstretched but ultimately takes it. "Sam Wilson."

"You, me, and Sam share leadership duties around here," Steve tells Bucky, rubbing at his eyes.

"Didn't you just say you want to punch me in the face?" Bucky asks Sam.

Sam purses his lips in regret. "Figure of speech."

"Sure," he shrugs. "Stitch in time saves nine, needle in a haystack, wanna punch you in the face. Old classics."

Sam seems to be smiling despite himself. "Listen," he says, "your counterpart and me don't always see eye-to-eye, but we're on the same side at the end of the day. I'm fighting on your behalf here. If you can't trust that, at least trust Steve when he says it."

"I trust it as much as I trust anything here, Sam, but I can't say I can do much better than that." He sounds tired, too. Steve can see from Sam's face that he hears the same thing. "I can take a little ribbing, anyhow, so don't worry about that."

"Good to know," Sam says, nodding. "That's kinda how you and me operate on this team most days."

"Then you won't mind if I dish it right back."

"I'd be concerned if you didn't."

"Glad to've cleared the air, then." He holds out his hand again in a gesture of overt friendliness, and if still surprised by it Sam takes it easily. "Let me just say I'm sorry I won't be more help next couple days. I'd rather pull my weight, but it seems like I'm out of my league here."

"Don't sweat it," Sam says, looking sidelong at Steve, apparently concerned at this sudden outpouring of sincerity. "Steve was just out for a bit, you're entitled to your turn."

"Yeah? When do you get yours?"

Sam gives a wan smile. "Hoping to god it's soon."

Bucky nods at him and clenches his jaw as he takes his leave, but halfway through turning he doubles back, pausing to take Wanda's hand. "James Barnes," he gravels smoothly.

"Never in your life," she says cheerfully.

Bucky clicks his tongue and looks to Steve in indignation. "Who the hell am I allegedly going steady with, then?"

"Just," Steve says, shutting his eyes, "go smoke your damn cigarette."

"Boy," Bucky says as he steps out of the room. "Tough crowd."

The four of them stare at each other in deathly silence until they hear the door to the balcony open, amidst sputtered profanities about automation and building height.

By the time it hisses shut again, everyone's looking at Steve.

Steve, meanwhile, is looking at Natasha. "What the _hell_ are you doing?" he asks her.

"I'm trying to make the situation feel more normal for Barnes," she responds calmly. "I didn't expect him to go in that hard, I only matched his level. You'll notice I backed off the second he did."

"'I thought you liked _blondes_ '?"

"I honestly can't believe you didn't tell him it's you he's in a relationship with," Natasha says, gesturing at him. "It was the first thing he told you so I just assumed you'd be -- you know -- worse than he is."

"I tried to have a conversation with him about it." Steve leans down hard on the conference table. "He is in _vicious_ denial. He thinks this whole thing is some kind of elabourate lucid dream sequence set up by someone who wants to catch him in a state of homosexual desire so they have grounds to persecute him."

A stunned silence blankets the room.

"Whoa," Natasha says. "Really?"

Steve nods, mouth tight; he looks to the table, suddenly feeling unable to face any of them. "Bucky in 1936... he's sole breadwinner for his mom and three sisters, has been since his dad passed on. He's trying to clear the Depression debt left behind, and it hasn't escaped him how lucky he's been to have steady work in the first place." Steve gestures at nothing, feeling helpless. "He's feeling _something_ for me, no doubt about that, but until Rebecca gets some paying work in a year or so he can't even _begin_ to think about the repercussions of that interest, so far as he's concerned. He'll think he's setting his family up for ruin if he indulges it for a second. Given where he's coming from, his feelings for me are better off buried for now." He looks up at Natasha. "Am I being clear?"

"Crystal," she agrees quickly. "I didn't know any of that. I don't think there's been any harm done, Steve."

Steve sighs and lets his head hang a second. "Sorry," he grinds out. "I'm not dealing with his denial very well. It's, uh…" He trails off; shakes his head. "At this point I'm just trying to get him through the time it takes us to put him back without causing him some kind of breakdown. He's under an obscene amount of stress, I can't remember a time before the war I've seen him this..." He shakes his head again and squints down at the table. "I'm kind of at a loss here."

"You see him more vulnerable than we do," Natasha says, "but he seemed to be keeping it together okay to me. I'm not sure there's anything more you should be doing."

"He didn't stumble into sergeant's training because he buckles under duress," Steve says. "He's in the habit of concealing his shit like this. He's an anxious kid who thinks marriage is his way forward into stability, no matter what he almost did that time at the docks or what he thinks about when he's by himself." Steve shakes his head; moves his face away when Wanda puts a consoling hand on his arm. "He doesn't trust me to get him through this, and that's... _Christ._ He doesn't even think I'm _real_."

Natasha shakes her head. "Maybe he won't admit it yet, Steve, but if he's reacting to you with that kind of intensity... that tells me he thinks you're _plenty_ real."

Steve spins away from the table, trying to get some distance from this terrible feeling gathering in his chest. "It's been _one hour,_ " he mutters, back turned to them.

"Exactly. Barely any time. Let him smoke a few cigarettes and think this out."

"Yeah," he says, turning back to her. "What the hell, by the way?"

"You think he's gonna settle down if he's in nicotine withdrawal?" She shrugs. "There's beer in the kitchen. Offer him one. Maybe even try having one yourself. It can't hurt."

Steve doesn't have anything to say anything to that. They let him pace in a circle a while, no one saying a word.

"Hey," Natasha says, after a while. "He's sexy; charming. Got an ironic sense of humour. I see why you fell for him."

Steve stares at the wall, hands on his hips. He knows she's just trying to make him feel like he's going less insane, and yet... "Smart as hell, too," Steve mutters, despite himself. "Though he'd never admit it." He shakes his head at the floor. "Still never understood what he saw in me."

"I'm glad I got to meet him."

"Wish he didn't have to go through this."

"We'll put it right."

Steve turns to her and opens his mouth, but the opening of the sliding door down the hall brings him to close it again.

Wanda looks between them as Steve plants his hands steadyingly on the conference table again, then picks up a tablet as though she's been talking all along. "I'm concerned the only way to make real inroads into the Enhanced community is to go under cover," she says, convincingly enough.

Steve raises his eyebrows at her. "Are you serious?"

"Would you prefer not to have any information?"

"Wanda. In this context? It's a risk beyond measure."

"I know how they operate," she says with a challenging smile, "and they've seen fit to accept me among their ranks before." 

Steve looks over mid-headshake to see Bucky sidle up beside him, stone-faced and smelling of cigarettes. "No," he says to Wanda, then turns to Bucky. "All right?"

"Is there an explanation for Midtown?" Bucky asks, expression pained. He's turning his shoulder over under his palm again. Steve's gonna have to get used to that. "Or should I just thank God for the gift of my life and take it at face value?"

"Nineteen million people in the tri-state area. Most of them work in Manhattan and surrounding."

Bucky nods, as though that makes any kind of sense to him. "That actually covers it, thanks."

Steve takes out his phone and runs a Wikipedia search on the US presidency. "Read this, that'll help clarify some things about the current situation. Page scrolls like this, don't press too hard. Blue words take you to a different page about that thing if you touch them; touch the left-facing triangle to go back to the page you were just on."

Bucky takes it with narrowed eyes and retreats to the nearest chair, muttering his incredulity.

"You're not going in," Steve tells Wanda. "We'll find another way."

"You think I'm just going to let this drop?" Wanda gestures at him. "Of all the people I would have thought would want to stop Hydra's experiments--"

"I'm not asking you to ignore it, I'm asking you to postpone it. This is a big operation you're proposing, and my attention's focused elsewhere. After this thing is over, you want support for your mission? You got it. Not before."

Steve can hear Wanda grinding her teeth. "I am helping you, am I not?"

"And I'm saying one thing at a time."

"What we really need," Natasha interrupts, Sam sighing his frustration beside her, "is to understand how Keaton could cast an effect on spacetime just by willing it, without it undoing now that he's dead. I don't know if this is more of a physics problem or a biology problem--" she gestures at Bucky-- "but either way I don't think we actually need to get to the bottom of the Hydra-Enhanced army problem to solve it."

"Good," Steve says. "We don't have that kind of time."

By the roll of her eyes, Steve guesses that Wanda actually agrees with her. "Just promise me we won't abandon this tack once this particular problem is solved," she says.

"I promise," Steve says. "You're right that I want to stop this trend, Wanda. There's no saying how unpredictable it could get. But if we go into that kind of mission armed with information we might glean from this one, we might even have a better shot at undoing this particular ring of Hydra's operations."

"Or at least the rest of us who weren't born before 1936 might not get turned into space dust," Sam remarks.

"It raises the question whether Keaton even meant to do this to either one of us," Steve says. "Bet he didn't meet a lot of people who he _could_ turn back to 1936."

Wanda raises her eyebrows as though intrigued. "Someone who was not in full control of their power, who made a mistake in their scope… it's happened before."

"So this might not be about trying to kill either one of us."

"But do we really want to take that risk?" Sam asks.

Steve gives a short sigh and shakes his head. "So do we go talk to Stark and try to understand how we could even try to undo the time strings or whatever? Or do we wait for Banner and get a more objective analysis of the situation?"

"I think given the circumstances," Sam says, flitting his gaze over to Bucky, "we should really wait until Banner gets here. You really want Stark trying to solve a Barnes-related problem right now?"

In the chair behind him, Bucky shouts his surprise when the phone buzzes in his hands.

"Yeah," Steve sighs, going to rescue him. "Guess you're right about that."

The phone buzzes again. Bucky throws it across the room. "What the hell kind of telephone?" he says, looking palely up at Steve.

"It does that instead of ringing now," Steve says, stooping to pick it up.

"That's a bad fucking development in ringing!"

Steve can't help but to feel fond as he sets the phone to silent and hands it back to him. "It won't do it again. Sorry."

Bucky scowls at him as he takes it back, looking young and angry; and, for all he wishes he could've spared him this pain, Steve thinks against the pang of his heart that to be able to see him this way again may not be the worst thing that could've happened.

  


  


* * *

  


  


On the other hand...

He's not sure he would call this _agony_ , exactly. He's definitely felt worse things than this. Being shot by Bucky? Way worse than this. Watching Bucky fall off the train? Waking up in 2011? Standing in the middle of that DC bridge to see Bucky staring blankly at him? All definitely worse than this.

But watching Bucky curled up stubbornly in the windowsill, arms crossed over his chest, refusing to go to sleep and yet nodding off where he sits, carves just the kind of crevasse in his heart to make Steve think it rivals the others.

Bucky is afraid of drifting off. Steve saw the apprehension in the blankness of Bucky's stare when Steve had suggested they go to bed, hours after the meeting had broken up, when they'd already stayed up too late raiding the kitchens. Steve had spent time explaining to Bucky about Hydra and Captain America; how the two of them share Cap duties with Sam, these days, and how they all take up the shield to try to fight Hydra and keep New York stable. Steve had also done his level best to give him the cliffnotes to the last 80 years or so of world history, about war in Korea and Vietnam and Afghanistan and Iraq; about civil rights, about neoliberalism, and about how gay marriage is legal now, with a smile he directed into a container of food. He'd explained about Sam's Air Force credentials, about Natasha's training; about how Wanda has powers and how Banner turns into a literal giant green monster if provoked. 

He'd explained about the Starks, about how there's some tension between Tony and the Captains America. He explained how Steve is tolerated in Stark Tower only because of some long-standing grudging mutual respect, and about how Sam takes most of the diplomatic meetings in their place. But Bucky can always read it on Steve's face when he starts to skirt around an issue, and to his credit, he never follows up. Bucky doesn't ask what his own relationship with Tony Stark is, when Steve doesn't tell him; Bucky doesn't ask what happened when he woke up in 2014, when Steve glosses over the circumstances behind it. He doesn't ask about what 'going into the ice' means, either, when Steve doesn't explain.

He doesn't ever ask whether or not Steve is single, despite having asked about everyone else he's met so far.

And just as Bucky knows all of this -- knows to protect himself from these things Steve doesn't want him to know -- so too does Steve know Bucky doesn't want to go to sleep. 

Because if he falls asleep and wakes up still here, that means he's not dreaming.

He nods off again and again, staring stubbornly out over the city lights every time he blinks awake again. Steve is at a loss. This could just as easily be the two of them from 1936 -- only it should be Steve staring miserably out the window, and Bucky trying to figure out how to cheer him up.

"Buck," Steve says, soft.

Bucky jolts, as though falling asleep again. "What?" he gravels, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"Go to sleep."

Bucky shakes his head. "Dunno why I'm so tired."

"It's a lot to take in. Plus your… older counterpart seems to have pulled an all-nighter a couple days ago."

"Still, shouldn't throw me like this."

"You're old now. Can't handle it the way you used to."

Bucky smiles thinly. "Right. Guess I'm… what, a hundred and one?" He looks up at Steve with tired eyes. "What month are we?"

"September."

"Yeah? What's the date?"

"Seventh?" Steve gives a dragging sigh and looks at his phone. "Seventh."

Bucky's looking at him, as though suspicious. "Huh."

"What, for you too?"

"Yeah."

Steve frowns and makes a mental note. "Interesting."

"That mean something to you?"

"Hard to say. Once Stark and Banner explain all this you'll probably have a better idea about what's going on than I do. I can't follow all that physics and biology stuff."

"Still bad with science, huh?"

"Abysmal. They tell me where to throw the shield; everyone else handles the rest."

Bucky stares at him and doesn't say anything.

"What?"

"That's it, huh? Steve Rogers throws his fists where people tell him to now?"

"It's not like that. It's… complicated."

Bucky only looks out into the night. Suddenly, Steve feels as tired as Bucky looks.

"Buck," Steve tries again. "Banner will be here tomorrow, we can get started on figuring out a solution. It'll all seem better with fresh eyes. Let's go to bed."

" _You_ go to bed."

Combative and familiar. Steve can't help but smile. "You want me to find somewhere else to be? I'll give you the room to yourself."

"Don't leave me alone in here, Rogers, are you kidding?"

He's surprised, but he nods. "Okay. Just let me know if you want anything."

Bucky looks into the nest of his arms, as though thinking. Steve waits with him.

"Lemme ask you something," he says at last.

"Shoot."

"How are you... different, and the same?" He gestures at him. "What's the reason for this?"

Steve's not sure he follows. "Be more specific?"

Bucky picks at the skin of his cuticle instead of looking at him. "Well, for starters, the Steve I know would already be halfway to a fight by now. 'What do you mean I'm different? I'm the same as I've ever been.'"

"I'm clearly not."

"Yeah, and you're calm as hell about it."

"You want me to -- what, get mad?"

"I don't want you to, but it would make sense."

Steve shakes his head. "Spent too long angry, Buck. Doesn't happen like that anymore."

"You telling me you don't get angry?"

"I get angry. I'm angry all the time. I pour it into fighting, sparring, planning… I have more outlets for that energy now."

"And what's left is… this." He gestures. "Stability. _Captain America._ "

"Guess so."

"How's that happen?"

"I'm fifteen years older now. I have a lot more experience. Guess it makes me more patient."

"Fifteen years," Bucky mutters to his feet, then looks up at him sidelong -- as though trying to believe it, or trying not to. "Experience with the Avengers, you mean."

"Among other things."

"As this handsome block of cheese."

The smile draws slow over Steve's face. "Block of cheese, huh?"

"Pale, large, triangular."

"Right."

"Smells funny."

Steve frowns, scandalized. "I do not!"

"Hate to break it to you, Rogers, but everything smells funny. Natasha's cigarettes are something else."

"I have it on good authority that I smell good."

"I'm teasing you; relax." A smile, thin and bitter, cracking at his lips. "I guess you still react the way you used to after all, sometimes."

"Sometimes," Steve agrees. "I'm still the same guy you know. Just older."

"You don't look like the same guy, and I don't mean in height, either. You're all control and command when you're at that table. I'd swear it was a different person standing there."

"Like I said," Steve says, "it's been a few years."

"Maybe, but you look like you swallowed that Captain America bullshit storyline, bones and all. Like you think that's who you are now." 

"Isn't it?"

A thousand emotions flit across Bucky's face: frustration, compassion, _pity_. " _No._ Even I can see that much."

It hits Steve hard. "Well, you always did see me through the bluster."

Bucky looks down and then away, the fingers of his hand tightening into a fist. "Someone has to."

"Yeah," he says. "Guess someone does."

"Used to hate it when I called you on your shit. Now you're…" He shakes his head. "What is this -- grateful?"

Steve looks at a spot on the floor and chews on his lip as he thinks how to answer. "Spent a few years without you," he says. "Thought you were dead. Spent a couple years after that chasing you down. Guess you could say I don't take you for granted anymore."

"Chasing me down, huh?"

"You weren't ready to see me right away," Steve says with a sad smile. "Time jump and all. Shook you up a bit."

"Imagine that."

Steve looks at the ceiling and smiles wide. When he straightens again, he sees Bucky looking at him, strangely open. 

"There he is," Bucky mutters. 

He ducks his head, suddenly embarrassed. Tension blushes unexpected in the room. He scratches at the back of his neck and casts around for some distraction, but Bucky beats him to it. 

"You're happy?" he asks, voice dragged low. "In general, I mean?"

"Yeah," Steve says, crossing his arms over his chest. "In ways."

"Come on. Can't even answer that one straight?"

"Just telling it like it is. That one's always been true. These days I've got a great team, I'm surrounded by good people. Can't ask for more than that, really."

Bucky doesn't quite buy it. "But?"

Steve looks at him as he waits, as though expecting an answer to come to him. "I don't know," he says, quiet, eventually. "The world's... a shithole. Sometimes I don't know which way to..."

Bucky nods, like this is typical too. "How's your art going nowadays?"

Steve breathes with shallow laughter. It's defensive, but he can't help it. "Can't say I've checked."

Silence falls. Steve doesn't care to break it. He'd love to pretend he's giving Bucky a minute, but in fact the pause is to calm himself.

"That's -- stupid." Bucky's voice is unexpectedly full. "That was your gift, Steve."

"You always said fighting was my other hobby. Guess I traded up."

"I said it to _stop you from fighting_ and to keep you working on your art. You didn't trade _up._ "

"It was my foremost gift _at the time_ , maybe. That doesn't necessarily make it anything now."

Bucky gives a harsh noise of frustration. "So, what, you wake up in the twenty-first century and become a soldier again just because you used to be, but being an artist somehow doesn't count the same way?"

"I was never an artist, I was a hobbyist."

"You _weren't_ , Steve, _Jesus._ Didn't you tell me I'm gonna send you to school for this? Of course I am, that's the best goddamn idea I've ever had. That's what you're _for_."

Steve winces. "It was never what I was _for_ , Bucky, come on. Where is this coming from?"

"I just see you walk around this place like you -- belong here."

"Don't I?"

"Don't feed me that shit, your heart's too good for this lark."

"What's wrong with fighting Nazis?"

"With your friends the mutants and a defected Russian spy?"

Steve pinches out a smile. "Don't remember you being this judgmental."

"I'm saying you are the company you keep."

He shrugs. "I'm the original. If Enhanced exist, it's down to me."

"So is that what this is? Repentance for some stupid decision you made a thousand years ago?"

"It's doing the right thing."

" _That_ sounds like Steve, and as goddamn stupid as ever."

"Oh, cut me a break, Bucky, you don't think something's gotta give, here? You read about the state of the nation. That sound like the kind of place you just keep your head down in and hope for the best?" Steve shakes his head. "Maybe for the common folk, but not for those of us who can do something about it. I won't apologize for doing any bit I can to change the landscape. Never have, never will. And for someone who's complaining I don't seem like myself, you're sure giving me a lot of shit for the things about me that haven't changed. And anyway, regardless of the fact that you're just the same as me these days, you can keep your arguments. You should know damn well by now that they don't work on me anyhow."

Bucky doesn't seem to have anything to say to that. He only stares out the window, body wrought with indelible tension. 

"I don't want to fight with you," Steve mutters.

"I'm just trying to make sense of all this, Rogers. Guess it's not on you. Gather I did this to myself, anyhow; running after whoever's responsible without backup." He shakes his head, lost. "Doesn't sound like me."

"You've changed, too."

"Guess so. Can't get the image of that grizzled old bastard with the beard out of my head."

"He's not so bad."

"He's an idiot. Listens to you too much by the sounds of things."

Steve smiles. "You'd be surprised."

Bucky sighs and runs a hand over his face. Steve realizes he hasn't tried to deflect reality into fiction for a while. "So I'm a fighter now too, huh? Survived a war just to…" He trails off and shakes his head. "I can't imagine choosing this."

"You… didn't, I'm sorry to say. You never wanted that war, nor this one."

"So I just fight anyway." He swallows. "I _fought_ anyway."

"Yeah."

"Because of -- you?"

It hits Steve hard enough to leave him dizzy, feeling breathless. "No," he says, but it doesn't quite sound true. "Other way around, more like."

"So I got conscripted and you got big, so you could join the Army and… come after me?"

Steve sighs and doesn't reply. It's answer enough.

"So you're the world's biggest idiot."

"I loved you, Bucky," he says, and shrugs. "Still do. I'd have taken on the world if it meant keeping you safe."

"Sounds like you did."

Steve doesn't bother trying to deny it. "Crucify me for it if you want, but it doesn't make it less the case."

"Right. Since you chased me down _again..._ "

"And I'd do it again if I had to."

"So you're saying you're an idiot regardless what year it is."

"It's like you said, Buck," Steve says, and faces him head-on with a pinched smile. "Some things haven't changed."

Bucky holds his eye for as long as he can before finally breaking his gaze away, and affection pangs at Steve's heart. 

He's just a kid. 

He's just a _kid._

"So how's it you and me both got iced trying to stop these assholes and somehow they're still here fucking with us eighty years after the fact?" Bucky gravels, rubbing at his eyes.

"I don't know," Steve says simply. "These days, Buck, we… kind of content ourselves with the answers we have."

"Sound like your Ma on that one."

"She was right a lot of the time."

Bucky's looking at him like he's not sure he knows him again. Steve shuts his eyes and lets time slip through their fingers, just for a while.

"I'm going for a smoke," Bucky says, and Steve opens his eyes to see him rising from the windowsill. It's a shock, to see him standing there a little leaner; a little more slender. Steve watches him like he'll never get this chance again.

"You know the way?" he grinds out, watching Bucky wincingly pull on a sweater to combat the midnight air.

"Yup." He rotates his shoulder in his socket as though getting the tension out, then grabs the cigarettes and the lighter off the desk. Steve remembers, briefly, the way his cheeks would grow concave around a cigarette when he inhaled; the way Steve, with his devastated lungs, used to wonder what it would be like to seal his mouth over his and take the smoke into him. How intimate it would be, to breathe it out himself.

Bucky must see something on his face, because he stops dead on his way out the door.

"Rogers," he says, coarsely. It's halfway between a scold and a question; halfway necessary, halfway exhausted.

Steve shakes his head and tries to spare him from it. "Nothing," he says, and sounds like he's lying.

Bucky hears it; keeps on looking at him, staring hard, until he reaches out a hand in some jerking, constrained gesture and drags the tips of his fingers across Steve's fringe. He used to do this from time to time while trying to soften Steve's distress when he didn't know what else to do, before they got together; and for all its familiarity it aches in Steve's gut.

"You hanging in there?" Bucky grinds out, then swallows hard; winces, as though against friction.

Steve's heart is pounding, and it shows in him; he reaches up slowly, wraps his fingers gently around Bucky's hand, then brings his knuckles to his lips. "Yeah," Steve manages, breath skating over his skin. He half-expects Bucky to deck him, but Bucky only creases his brow and extends his thumb to brush at the edge of his lip. His skin is dry and cracked from the hard labour of his work. "It's stupid," Steve says, "but I… I think I miss you, somehow."

Bucky nods with those eyes pinched with confusion and pain, and brushes the pad of his thumb against the stubble Steve never used to be able to grow. "Yeah, Rogers," he says. "I know what you mean." 

Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the hand is gone. 

It clenches at Bucky's side. Steve applies every ounce of his will not to follow its path of retreat. "How about you?" Steve asks, voice strained, listening to the creak of restraint in Bucky's skin. "You hanging in there?"

"Oh, you know me, Rogers," he says, and flashes a flat-lined smile. "It's all fake, anyhow, right?"

Steve tries to force a smirk, but only manages a sad tightening of the corners of his mouth.

"You gonna be here when I get back?" Bucky asks the doorframe, rolling his shoulders hard and unkind.

Steve sits up straighter; clears his throat, tries to find ground. "I'll be here, Buck. Unless you don't want me to be."

"Hell, Rogers, how many times I gotta say? Don't leave me alone in the Hell Tower from the Future."

"Then yeah. I'll be here."

Bucky nods, once; curt. "Good," he says, then moves to step out of the room. "Now go the hell to bed, dumbass, you look like the walking dead."

Steve waits a minute with his head thrown back until he hears the distant hiss of the automatic doors; then, moving with the weight of a thousand pounds hoisted on his chest, he throws himself headlong into the bed and falls asleep before Bucky even gets back.

  


  



	3. Part III

  


Steve blinks himself to consciousness in the middle of the night. 

His heart pounds as he wrests himself out of sleep. It's still dark; the clock tells him it's a little past 3:00am. He can't say what's woken him, except that it was by instinct: like there's something in the room that shouldn't be; like he registered something in unconsciousness out of place.

On the bed beside him, Bucky lies, facedown, mouth hanging open in the dead of sleep.

Steve watches him; waits for his pulse to settle. Bucky still sleeps with tension embedded in his form, or does already -- Steve hadn't remembered that. Bucky's clothes lie folded on the chair in the corner of the room. Steve had forgotten he used to do that, too. Always concerned about his appearance, he never minded finding an iron, but he avoided it if he could. An oddly meticulous habit now completely lost.

A blanket's been put over Steve where he slept. Bucky must have fished a spare out from some closet and thrown it over him, the way he used to. 

_Old habits,_ Steve thinks.

Bucky is the thing that doesn't belong.

Steve reaches out a hand and brushes a strand of hair away from Bucky's eyes. _Old habits._ He gets up, cloistered by the silence of the room. Bucky's a much deeper sleeper than Steve's used to these days, but still he moves with care as he steps into the hall. He goes to the kitchen and puts on a pot of coffee, partially hoping there might be someone left awake, but also finds he's kind of relieved when there isn't. 

Once in the conference room, Steve stacks together the reports he hasn't caught up on. First are Stark's notes, unsurprisingly barely comprehensible between the tangential thought-jumping and inscrutable scientific shorthand. Sam's provided helpful translations in the margins:

 _Tech's been hacked. Can organics interfere with synthetics by sheer force of will? Stark doesn't see why not. If time travel's possible, apparently anything's possible. It's all wavelength and frequency, somehow._ Then: _Concerns about Barnes' arm -- also hackable tech? Could that be how Keaton got the jump on him?_ Then, near the end: _Note to self: brush up on quantum shit. Doubt this is the last time we're gonna see this._

A somewhat cryptic report from Wanda follows:

> Some Enhanced abilities appear to affect the world primarily thanks to a difference in perspective within the host itself. A series of leading questions while accessing the mind of the apparent time mutant Keaton allowed me to access images of how he visualizes the world. It is impossible to describe verbally or convey visually, and I am not certain I understand what I witnessed. 
> 
> The best way of putting it is that Keaton was able to visualize a fourth dimension of sorts, a secondary image superimposed over the actual world due to a connection to spacetime, like film over a lens. It could occur with place; Keaton could look at a building and see another building imposed overtop. If it had formerly been there, he could see it as though it was as present as the building there today. I confirmed several addresses with Steve while younger; his account corroborates what I found in Keaton's mind.
> 
> It could also, in rare cases, occur with people. I located Keaton's memories from seeing both Steve Rogers and James Barnes, and their younger selves appeared to exist simultaneously with their present-day forms. It seems possible Keaton willingly switched the time streams out of curiosity's sake alone; it must have been unusual to him to witness two young men occupying the same plane at the same time. Based on what I could discern, it is also possible Keaton had no ability to discern between past and present versions of the same token. Given that our communications with Keaton were at no point clear, it is possible he was driven mad by this Enhancement or otherwise.
> 
> Having now met both the younger Steve Rogers and James Barnes, I can confirm that the images I saw in Keaton's mind seem consistent with the actual younger counterparts Keaton saw to look at them. My hypothesis, then, in combination with Stark's findings, is that Keaton was connected to a single point in time in 1936 and could pull the strings between then and now without much difficulty at all. Stark strongly doubts the exchange is possible in the other direction, since Keaton's Enhancement exists only on this side of time (one assumes), and absent other information I'm inclined to trust that judgment. 
> 
> Why he is anchored to this point in 1936 in specific is impossible to say. Whether he has ever done this with other people, or with inanimate objects, is also difficult to say. Likely his foremost subject of experimentation has been himself, for obvious reasons. A more universalizable reversal effect may come in useful for more than just in the exchange of Barnes with his current self.
> 
> An unanswered question is why Keaton was no longer able to perform his ability on himself after capture. If he was unable to revert himself to his 1936 form, and unable to revert either Rogers or Barnes back to their present-day form, it would suggest my confusion hypothesis is the most likely. Keaton perhaps was confused enough -- either resulting from brute force or other effect -- that he was no longer able to tell which time stream was which (if indeed he ever was). This likely also explained his state of panic while being held in Stark Tower, for he may have been uncertain whether we were all hovering in the air or not.
> 
> Short of an autopsy I've suggested Keaton died partially of shock or fear; it seems possible that, had we not held Keaton on the 54th floor of a building that did not exist in 1936, he may have recovered. Sam agrees. Regardless, these events have been informative: we now understand that Enhanced, most simply defined, are those with systems of knowledge different than the rest of the population, coupled with an ability to affect the world using that limited perspective. 
> 
> The potential of this is tremendous on either side of the fight.
> 
> (Steve will prefer cliffnotes to these events.)

Steve tosses the report aside and stands with his fists braced against the table for a long time. Wanda's work is good, but they're keeping aspects of the situation hidden from him. "Cliffnotes" amount to giving Steve a different version of the truth -- likely one where Keaton died through no fault at all. No wonder Wanda was being evasive with him. 

Steve takes out his phone with the intention of trying to pick up some tips on quantum mechanics on his own, but finds a few dozen message notifications on the Stark Industries group chat instead.

> **Sam** : Unless we can find another person who can see time as a fourth dimension, I don't see how we're going to fix this.
> 
> **Tony** : There's a way.
> 
> **Sam** : Yeah? What do you have in mind, start forcing Enhanced abilities out of innocents our own damn selves?
> 
> **Tony** : Marginally beyond our ethical bounds, isn't it?
> 
> **Sam** : Yeah, marginally. Listen, we adopt defectors from time to time. Maybe we seek out a few more and see what shakes?
> 
> **Wanda** : From what I can discern, most of the mutants under Hydra's employ are loyal to Hydra, either by brainwashing or genuine commitment. Bear in mind they were, at least some of the time, under no illusions as to the organization they were joining when they opted in to experimentation. If we value our internal security we should disregard this plan.
> 
> **Tony** : Rich from a defector.
> 
> **Wanda** : Rich from a collusionist warmonger.
> 
> **Tony** : Whose resources are you using right now? Remind me.
> 
> **Sam** : Hey, come on, in-fighting's what they want.
> 
> **Tony** : Tell that to her.
> 
> **Wanda** : Tell that to him.
> 
> **Natasha** : Security is paramount. Sorry, Sam, but we need to tread softly here.
> 
> **Sam** : No, I get it. I'm just out of goddamn ideas.
> 
> **Tony** : If seeing time happened once, it can happen again, that's all I'm saying.
> 
> **Wanda** : It seems likely that anybody capable of seeing time as Keaton did will not have the capacity to understand the world any longer. If we accept the possibility he went insane, I am fairly certain no one is /meant/ to see time as a fourth dimension.
> 
> **Tony** : That's quitter talk.
> 
> **Wanda** : Are you volunteering?
> 
> **Tony** : It WOULD be fun to be able to turn Captain Perfect into Captain Pipsqueak every time he pisses me off.
> 
> **Steve** : Tony's not volunteering.
> 
> **Natasha** : =D hey Steve
> 
> **Sam** : Stark, what the hell? You didn't lock this chat?
> 
> **Tony** : Should I have?
> 
> **Steve** : If you wanted to pretend like we didn't kill Keaton, you probably shouldn't have left your reports on the conference room table.
> 
> **Tony** : Wait, were you hypocrites gonna lie to Cap about Keaton going crazy? And you call ME the one with questionable ethics.
> 
> **Sam** : There were reasons.
> 
> **Steve** : Sure. "Protection's sake?"
> 
> **Tony** : Don't be obtuse, Cap. They wanted to pretend like they're as good as you pretend to be.
> 
> **Natasha** : I opposed this, for the record.
> 
> **Steve** : That's why you're my favourite of all my delinquent children, Romanov.
> 
> **Natasha** : Wow. I think I liked little Steve better.
> 
> **Wanda** : Technically we didn't lie yet.
> 
> **Steve** : Right. What's conspiracy to conceal manslaughter among friends, really?
> 
> **Natasha** : I don't think you get to talk. Now that I've met small Steve I feel like you might've killed five men and brushed it off as self-defense.
> 
> **Steve** : Only if it WAS self-defense. I'm joking, anyway. Obviously the charges would more likely be neglect causing bodily harm.
> 
> **Sam** : I can no longer tell if you're being sarcastic and that is making me seriously question every life decision I've ever made to lead me here.
> 
> **Steve** : Unless we're adding concealing a body to the list of charges. Or is there going to be a staged accident scene somewhere?
> 
> **Natasha** : Calm down, Steve. You know it's taken care of.
> 
> **Sam** : You know what? I'm starting to miss the easy breezy days of protesting Bush.
> 
> **Steve** : Actually, you're right. It's better if I don't know anything about this. Someone's gotta break you out of jail.
> 
> **Tony** : Hey. I pay law enforcement good money to avert their eyes from our activities.
> 
> **Sam** : ...I can't believe you just put that down in text.
> 
> **Tony** : These logs auto-purge, come on. Who do you take me for?
> 
> **Sam** : Have I mentioned lately I regret meeting any of you?
> 
> **Tony** : Wait, hang on, I changed my mind. I'm keeping this conversation forever just so I can bring it up as receipt the next time one of you tries to call me a colluder. Not telling anyone a man died in our care is *protection* now!
> 
> **Steve** : Stark, go to bed. Everybody go to bed. We'll start fresh when Banner gets here and you'll tell me /everything/ you're not bothering to now.
> 
> **Tony** : What, am I not enough for you?
> 
> **Steve** : Aren't you stumped?
> 
> **Tony** : I'm not *stumped,* I'm percolating.
> 
> **Steve** : Right. You always call in Banner to help with your percolating. Hey, try not to build an unkillable AI to deal with the situation this time.
> 
> **Tony** : Only if you promise not to side with your ex-lover on whether killing my mom with his bare hands was morally OK. Hey, Cap… come to think of it, when you failed to tell me about that, were you "protecting" me like they're trying to "protect" you right now? Or is that somehow exempt from your "conspiracy" categorization just because you used to fuck back in the day?
> 
> **Sam** : GOODNIGHT STARK
> 
> **Wanda** : Goodnight, everyone.
> 
> **Natasha** : bye all
> 
> **Tony** : Do I not have a point? Anyone? Bueller?
> 
> **Steve** : You better not just be moving to a locked chat.
> 
> **Sam** : GOODNIGHT STEVE

  


* * *

  


  


Steve wakes in daylight to find Bucky gone.

He sits up in a blind panic, cognition hindered by sleep. 

Then it sets in there's probably nothing wrong. Bucky's an early riser, then as now. 

Steve drags himself up, pulls on some sweatpants and a shirt; registers that Bucky's clothes are gone from the chair where they were left. He steps into the hall and hears Bucky's voice at once, surprisingly boisterous, floating out from the kitchen, and smiles his relief.

"And then he launched himself headlong into a throng of, no kidding, five massive guys -- we're talking heavyweights here -- fists flying everywhere. And the thing about Steve, the thing about that fiery son of a gun, is that no one ever expects him to punch them in the face without warning like that. He's got some crazy element of surprise that shouldn't by any account give him an advantage, but by the time I'd pushed up my sleeves to join him he'd already knocked two of them flat and was biting the hand of the third guy trying to haul him away like some kind of angry chihuahua."

"I'd swear he's kept surprise in his arsenal," comes Sam's voice as Steve shambles down the hall. "Nobody expects to get hit in the face by a flying shield."

"Shit." Bucky pauses, as though to swallow. "Kinda hate to say it, but I wouldn't mind seeing Steve in action, size he is now. Bet he dominates."

"That he does," Sam says, almost grimly. "Uses his body like a battering ram."

"I told him to stop with that."

Sam's leaning against the counter near the doorway when Steve walks into view. "Hey, man," he says, smiling, nursing a coffee and looking exhausted. "Food if you want it."

"Still coffee?"

Sam gestures to the carafe on the counter. Steve groans his relief and trudges over to pour himself a cup; downs it in one, ignoring or reveling in the sear of it through his body.

"You sleep at all?" Sam asks.

"Couple hours before our chat, stayed up reading a while, then a couple more after. Shouldn't feel this bad." Steve waves a hand and pauses to drain a second cup, then resurfaces with an obnoxious noise of pending invigoration. "Still recovering from quantum... time… whatever, I guess."

Sam gives an indulgent look. "Sure."

Steve averts his gaze and wills Sam not to spill the beans on the fact that Steve's been known to sleep seventeen hours solid and still feel like garbage upon waking. He also hopes Bucky manages to remain oblivious to the tone of their conversation, but when he chances a look to his other side a second later he finds Bucky staring at him anyway, caught between concern and an apparent interest in the rate at which he's downing coffee.

"Guess you can drink that now, huh?" he says carefully.

"Yeah," Steve says, half-apologetic. "Need the kick in the mornings sometimes."

"Always did. Used to be a literal kick, though."

"That was your prerogative, not mine." He downs half of his third cup, then forces himself to take it easy, at least pausing long enough to grab milk out of the fridge.

"Eat something, would you?" Bucky jabs his fork in the direction of the pan. "Gonna give yourself a heart attack drinking all that dirt."

"Not hungry."

"Same as ever about breakfast, huh? Sam made food. It is meant for you. Eat it."

"It was never a sacrificial thing, Buck. I'm just not hungry in the mornings."

"Bullshit. No excuse now."

"Exactly. So leave it alone."

"You a superhero or not? Don't you need calories for that kind of thing?"

"I can pack it away, believe me. I'll eat when I'm hungry, quit henpecking."

Bucky flickers his gaze over to Sam. "He always like this?"

"Pretty much," Sam says, not bothering to conceal his resignation. "I just met your Steve, though; seems to me he used to be a lot angrier about it."

"True enough."

"Learned a lot meeting that guy."

"Yeah, I'll bet. You learn anything from me?"

Sam nods. "Few things."

"Yeah?" He's trepidatious, but Steve's pretty sure this isn't gonna go as Bucky expects. "Such as?"

"Always thought certain personality traits of yours were because you fought the war, but I see now you were always this way."

"And what way is that?"

Sam looks mildly between them, then sips of his coffee. "Fussy."

Steve raises his cup to hide his smile. Bucky pulls a face. 

"I'm not fussy!"

"You're fussy. You like things a certain way. They don't follow a script, you start to lose the plot."

"Now, hang on!"

"If I hadn't been here and there'd been eggs in the fridge, wouldn't you have made porridge?"

"I'm -- a guest in someone's home! I haven't even met the guy!"

"Stark doesn't provide the eggs. We do."

"Well how the hell am I supposed to know that?"

"Had no trouble raiding the fridge last night. You two really pack away a whole thing of bacon _and_ an entire block of cheese?"

Bucky points to Steve. "He made me eat nachos!"

"I didn't _make_ you eat nachos," Steve objects.

"Whole heaping plate." Bucky makes a dome gesture with his hands. "You telling me you just help yourself to whatever you find in other people's fridges?"

"He does, actually," Steve says. "Does it at our house all the time."

Bucky looks briefly surprised, but then remembers their alleged apartment together. "That makes _you_ rude," Bucky says, pointing his fork at Sam. "That doesn't make me fussy."

"That's another thing," Sam says. "You still pick fights over nothing."

"Me?! You started this!"

"I'm just answering the question _you_ asked."

Bucky looks at Steve, wide-eyed, knife and fork splain in hands. "We're supposed to work with this guy?"

Steve subdues an affectionate grin by sipping his drink.

"What's that mean?" Bucky mutters sidelong to Sam.

"He thinks we're each as bad as the other," Sam says flatly.

"Well, that's obviously false."

"Tell me about it."

They stew in stubborn silence.

"Stop looking so happy," Bucky snaps at Steve, after a while.

Steve smiles wider and turns to refill his coffee. "Sorry."

Sam wheezes laughter into his mug. Bucky shovels the last of his breakfast into his mouth and throws his utensils indelicately onto the plate, leaning back in satisfaction. "Well, that was damn good, Sam. You didn't have to do that."

"Wasn't gonna let you subsist on oats. When I was nineteen I must've put away four thousand calories a day."

"Guess I'm not used to this abundance."

"Well, help yourself. A lot of our petty cash comes from you anyhow, you're paying for it yourself."

Bucky looks at him with sidelong suspicion, but then shrugs, ultimately deciding he doesn't want to follow up. "Alright then, I will. Hey, Steve, apparently it's on me. Have some."

"I'm good."

"Come on, Rogers, you're gonna be running on fumes."

"Let me drink my coffee in peace, would you?"

"You gotta keep up your strength, I'm telling you."

"I have strength to spare. Just because you used to bug me about eating enough when we didn't have any food, doesn't mean you have to now."

"Wouldn't you miss it if I didn't?"

"No," Steve objects. "You never do these days anyway."

"Is that true?" Bucky asks Sam.

"No," Sam says.

"Whose side are you on?" Steve asks him, annoyed.

Bucky grins and rolls his shoulder over under his palm again. "I'm just saying: there is food. For eating. I'm paying. So eat it."

Far from acquiescing, joviality drops sudden from Steve's face.

It's Bucky's left shoulder he's been trying to stretch out; of course it is. It's just that this is the first time Steve's registered the wince of pain for what it is. 

He sets down his coffee and tries for a casual tone. "That shoulder bothering you, Buck?"

"Nah," he says, but even as the word leaves his lips his brow creases with further discomfort. "Must've pulled it training a couple days ago. Seem to be hitting that 48 hour sweet spot now. It'll work itself out, always does."

Steve exchanges a look at Sam, who fortunately looks as concerned as Steve feels. "You sure you pulled it? You remember doing that?"

"Not exactly, but it couldn't be anything else, could it?"

Steve steps forward and takes Bucky's arm gingerly in his hands, despite his sputtering objections. "It feel any different to you?" He prods two fingers at Bucky's collar, his shoulder. "From how it did in training?"

"You mean apart from how it hurts? No. Why?"

"Where does it hurt, exactly?"

"Started behind my shoulderblade, but I'd guess it's a rotator cuff issue now. Nothing I haven't dealt with before... what's gotten into you?"

"Sam," Steve mutters. "Would you take a look at this?"

"Let's not overreact," Bucky objects.

"I don't think I'm gonna be much help on this one," Sam says, but he's already prodding at Bucky by his side. "I'm just a medic, I'm not versed in... uh… well, Stark might be a better bet."

Steve looks to him. "You think it's that serious?"

"Escalating pain, unexplainable, given where it is?" Sam ratchets Bucky's arm up high and steps close with an ear to him, as though to listen for motors working beneath his skin. "Sounds like a science problem to me."

Steve shakes his head and keeps prodding at Bucky's skin. "But this -- it _isn't_ \--"

Bucky looks between them like they've both gone insane. "What the hell are you two on about?"

"You want me to see if he's free?" Sam says.

"At least see if he's _interested_?" Steve winces. "I hate to subject _anyone_ to this situation, but I really don't like the sound of this."

"It's a _boxing injury_!" Bucky shouts, as though they've misheard.

Sam waves as he leaves the room.

Bucky watches him go, then looks at Steve, bewildered. "What's going on?"

Steve sighs and throws himself down in the nearest chair. He'd really thought he'd be able to get through this entire thing without having to have this conversation, but that would mean the world was fair. "There's something I haven't told you."

"No shit!"

"You in the future..." Steve sighs hard. "I'm sorry to tell you, Buck, but you've -- you've lost an arm, in the future. Your left arm. It got amputated, after an accident."

"Amputated?!"

"High on the shoulder." He sets the side of his hand against his collar, as though to demonstrate. "You use a high-tech prosthetic in the future that uses some, ah, hardware--"

" _Hardware?_ "

"--that's been installed in your body. We thought it'd been removed when you got turned back to this form, but--"

"Some _what_ that's been _what?_ " 

Bucky's voice has gone tight with panic. Steve stops, holds his eye; tries to breathe with him the same way he always does, when Bucky's anxiety starts to get away from him.

"I know this is a lot to swallow," Steve says, low.

"Lot to swallow!" He gestures furiously at his left side. "So how's it here now if that's all true? You saying I _grew an arm_ in recent days?"

"We don't know what happened. We only have speculation to go on. We found your prosthetic beside you at the Hydra camp you were infiltrating, Bucky, but your left arm seemed to work fine, so it was..." He sighs; refocuses. "Basically we just need Stark to run a scan on you to make sure everything's okay. So I can quit worrying about nothing. Okay?"

"Sure as shit doesn't sound like nothing to me!"

Something in the note of it forces Steve's shoulders to collapse; brings his face into abject sympathy.

Bucky shuts his eyes, seeing it for what it is. "Nevermind! I liked the lies better."

"I'm not lying to you."

"No. You're just withholding the truth in degrees to ensure my complacency."

Steve's eyebrows shoot up. It's something that would've been straight out of Steve's mouth, fifteen years ago. "I want you to be -- comfortable, that's all."

"Until it bubbles to the surface and your bullshit gets uncovered, is that right?"

"I'm not trying to hurt you, Bucky, you gotta believe that. I'm trying to prevent as much hurt as possible."

"Well let me tell you, Rogers, there is something fundamentally deficient in your strategy."

Steve has nothing to say to that.

Bucky rolls his shoulder over in its socket again, hand poised over it. Steve blinks at him softly, trying at least to convince him they're on the same side. 

He gets only a stare for his trouble, Bucky keeping his mouth thin, offering no words to alleviate him of his guilt. "One test," Steve says, quiet, and Bucky rolls his eyes. "Brief. Listen -- pretend it's fake. Or, at the very least, know that it's temporary."

"Losing an arm doesn't sound very fucking temporary to me, Rogers."

"The pain is; at least believe that much. Once we know what's going on we'll find you some painkillers and hopefully we'll know what's going on. It'll help you, Bucky."

Bucky winces, like he doesn't believe it. "Stop being so fucking serene, would you?"

"Okay." Steve pauses to think. Bucky always used to head to the boxing gym when he got like this. "So you want to fight this instead? Let's fight."

"Don't pander to me, either." 

He sounds tired, all of a sudden. Steve watches as Bucky clenches his fist and stares at his hand, like he's trying to figure out what it would be like not to have it anymore.

"Don't overthink it." Steve pushes Bucky's head gently to the side. "Huh? C'mon, stay focused."

Bucky looks at him, scandalized, because it's the same kind of thing Bucky used to do to Steve all the time. "What, you think just because you're big now you can push me around?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Well, you're wrong." Bucky's hand snatches to grab Steve's wrist with lightning reflexes, and he's strong, _god_ , his grip is tight; he stands over Steve, menacing, like he'd been angling for a fight all along. "How d'you like that, huh, punk?"

Steve grins up at him, as helpless to this shit as he's ever been. "You think you still got an edge on me?"

"Of course I do, Rogers, look at you. You're just a--"

Steve rises to his feet, his wrist still in Bucky's grip. As he stands to his full height, the sentence dies in Bucky's throat. "What am I?" Steve says.

"You're... uh..."

Steve steps forward. Bucky staggers back. His eyes are wide and searching Steve's, and from the surprise on his face he doesn't expect it when his back hits the wall. 

"I'm a punk," Steve says, voice low. He laces his fingers around Bucky's other wrist; holds at it gently but wholly, and Bucky glances down, as though to register at the size of his hand. Then his gaze crawls back up, and Steve's crowding him a little close, he knows he is; it's something like revenge, for all the time Bucky's crowded Steve into a corner just as helpless. "Is that what you were gonna say?"

"That's right," Bucky says, but it's been ground down to a croak. Then he turns his wrist in Steve's grip, and the tension on his face drops to devastation at once. 

It flickers whole on his face. Bucky's eyes trail away, his mouth opening with a barely-heard gasp. Arousal rips through Steve just as fast, and then it blooms between them; ensnares them both. Steve's left to stand over Bucky, to watch his lips dry out; to watch the way his teeth sink into the parched flesh of them, just to give himself something else to think about other than Steve's hands, his tensile grip.

"Jesus," Bucky grits out, before Steve can think. He shifts against the wall. "Gimme room to breathe, would you?"

Steve blinks; comes back to himself. "Sorry." He steps swiftly back. 

Bucky clenches his jaw and looks to the floor. "All those times I did that to you, huh? Guess I never realized how it feels."

Only Steve had never felt as pained as Bucky looks now. He used to revel in the thrill of it, when Bucky would leer over him like that. 

"I always… liked it, though, Buck."

Bucky winces. He scratches at the back of his neck; the blush blossoms full down to his collar. "Yeah," he mutters. "Picking up on that now."

"I think you picked up on it then."

He waves a finger in the air. "Yeah. I guess I…"

Bucky looks up and meets Steve's eye. Tension builds again, then hangs, with these words that dwell next to admission. 

Steve wants nothing more than to reach out to him, but he's sure Bucky would just leave if he did. "What can I," he begins, watching him. "How can I -- help?"

Bucky shoves his hands in his pockets. "Just don't -- crowd my space, Rogers."

"Okay. Sure."

"You know more than I do. It's not fair. That puts it on you. It's on _you_ , Steve."

"Okay. It's on me."

"It's on you to tell me before it gets relevant when I'm -- missing a fucking arm." Bucky reaches over to the kitchen table and grabs a napkin; throws it at him, full with feeling. "Do better."

Steve takes a steadying breath. He registers the flicker of something at the corner of Bucky's mouth; takes it to heart. "I'm doing -- what I know how, Buck. It's imperfect. I'm sorry for that."

"Don't be _sorry_. Just get that I don't know anything about -- any of it, what you know. I don't know it. You can't just _assume_ I understand it. I don't understand a goddamn thing _about_ you, Steve." Finally: emotion, wrenching. "I've been trying to _tell_ you I don't know who you are."

It's true, Steve thinks. He has been trying to say as much. But for the first time, Steve only hears: Bucky doesn't know _himself._

"You know who I am, Bucky," Steve says. "Nobody knows who I am better than you."

"Well I guess that's fucking true," he says, and takes a breath deep into his chest. " _You_ keep forgetting you're not on-mission 24/7. Sit down and eat something, would you?"

"I _am_ on-mission 24/7."

"That's where you're wrong. Have some fucking breakfast, Rogers."

"I'm not hungry."

"Then get hungry."

"Fuck you, pal."

"Well, go to hell then."

It takes a second, but then Steve can't fight the smile that breaks wide over his face. He's relieved to see one flicker on Bucky's, too. 

"Listen," Steve says, trying to get him away from thinking too hard. "In the interest of advance disclosure, I need to ask you to tread kind of carefully with Stark when he gets here. You and he don't exactly get along, and I wouldn't call him the most stable of all people."

Bucky winces, scratching at the back of his neck. "He really the type to take issue with a man who doesn't even know him?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

Bucky stares. "So, what, I knock him out once or something?"

"Little more complicated than that. Come to think of it, it's better if you don't say anything. Answer his questions, but otherwise just… don't speak. How about it?"

"Don't _speak_?"

"Something happened a few years ago and you -- feel bad, all right, but there's not a lot you can really do about it. So you and Stark pretty much just give each other a wide berth and never, you know, look each other too close in the eye. The rest of us pretend there's no issue most of the time, and that… seems to work best for everyone."

"I can't look him in the _eye_?"

"You can look him in the eye, but just don't be surprised if he… glares back."

Bucky narrows his eyes. "Are you having me on?"

"I'm not having you on."

"This issue is big enough that you want me to play nice and pretend like nothing's happening, but because there's no solution I just avoid Stark in his own house most of the time?"

Steve stares with a thin mouth. "Yeah."

A harrowing beat. "Is this why I don't have an arm?"

"No." But then Steve hesitates. 

"Oh, Christ. What now? And don't say it's nothing, because--"

"Well, it's just that Stark did take your arm off one time."

"What!"

"But you'd already… lost it by then?"

Bucky sits down hard. "Is _that_ why we don't talk?"

"No. He took off your arm after you… already didn't talk." Steve winces. "Sort of."

"So -- you're telling me that I spend half my life in this insane future tower, owned by a man who is motivated to commit grievous assault against me on a regular basis, for reasons you don't want me to know--"

"Well -- no, it's not--"

"--and now you want me to _submit to tests_ to discern the nature of my bodily pain, performed by this same guy, who also happens to be flying car man's rich and crazy son."

Steve winces heavily. "Look, I won't leave the room. I can take Tony, Buck, easy. He starts anything, I throw him out. He comes in here armed, I throw him out. Realistically I don't think he'll do anything other than be a little frosty with you, but if things get out of hand, I got your back. Alright?" That threatening smile, again. "Way you used to have mine. Trust me."

Bucky buries his face in his hands, but then re-emerges and runs his fingers through his hair. "So what you're saying," he says slowly, injecting that false arrogance back into his tone for lack of anything else to do, "is that I should _absolutely_ start shit just to see you throw him outta here."

" _No,_ " Steve says, emphatic. "You cannot do that. Do not push this envelope, Bucky."

"Relax, Rogers. That's what they call a joke." 

"Just understand that we need the security Stark offers, exactly for occasions like this, when we have no worldly idea how to beat an enemy too powerful for us. Please don't contribute to the precarity of this arrangement."

Bucky's face flickers with concern. "Jesus. Not like you to admit defeat."

"I'm not. But let's say I've at least gotten better at realistically assessing the situations I throw myself into."

Bucky opens his mouth to reply, but Sam's voice cracks on the overhead, interrupting. "Hey, Steve, you got incoming."

Steve sighs to the ceiling. "Thanks, Sam. How's he seem?"

A pause. "Uhhh..."

"Got it," he says tiredly.

The intercom clicks off. Steve and Bucky exchange a protracted glance, communicating without speaking.

"You'll behave?" Steve asks aloud.

"Please, Rogers." Bucky hitches an elbow over the back of his chair. "I always behave."

Steve shakes his head at him, clenching his jaw. Bucky smiles, some mischievous thing, and if it's artificial as all hell, at least he isn't panicking anymore. "Well, c'mon," Steve mutters, getting to his feet. "Let's find somewhere more neutral to be."

"More neutral than the kitchen?" Bucky says, following.

"Somewhere with natural light. Window wouldn't hurt."

"Yeah? He a vampire or something?"

Steve glances back at him. "I was thinking more along the lines of easy tossing."

Bucky's face flickers into a grin as they enter the common space at the foot of the hall. "Oh, now I _really_ gotta start something."

"Don't you dare."

"Never seen you toss anyone before. This might be my only chance."

" _No._ "

"Who's tossing whom?"

Steve shuts his eyes tight at the sound of Tony's voice; surreptitiously places himself between the two of them, hands splain in defense. "No one's tossing anybody," he says, stepping forward.

Tony's not fooled. "You know I'd come right back up in full armour," he says dryly as he advances. "I feel like you don't want that, given you're down one fighter." His eyes settle on Bucky. "I mean, look at him. He's puny. It's adorable."

"You gonna tell him to play nice too?" Bucky asks Steve out of the corner of his mouth.

"He already knows better," Steve says flatly.

Tony smiles defiantly in Steve's direction. He doesn't bother to conceal his distaste as he sets what looks to be a souped-up first aid kit onto the nearest table. "So you're, what, 19?" he asks, clearly speaking to Bucky despite not looking at him. "That makes you ignorant to pretty much... everything, I guess. I mean, more than usual."

"You know the drill, Tony," Steve interjects. Tony had, after all, spent at least an hour running interrogation on small Steve about his state of mind, reaching increasing registers of delight as Steve had grown more and more agitated with every passing second.

"Remember all that, huh?" Tony mutters.

"Yeah," Steve says, but his disdain drops away as he snaps his fingers with remembrance. "Actually, I wanted to mention -- Bucky says it's September 7th in his timeline too."

"Hate to be the one to break it to you, Cap, but it's the 8th."

"Yesterday was the 7th. I asked him yesterday."

Tony shrugs and withdraws an instrument from his kit -- long, blunt, with a display at the top. "Could be a coincidence."

"I'm pretty sure it was early September when I was from, too. There's gotta be something to that, right? Given that Keaton seems to have been anchored in a single point in time?"

Tony makes a noncommittal sound and looks at Bucky with reserved curiosity. "Arm hurts where?"

"Shoulder."

Tony points to the table. Bucky looks at him uncomprehendingly until Tony ushers him over to it, finally figuring out that he's supposed to sit on it. "You know about the work you've had done?" Tony asks, prodding at his arm with both hands.

"Vaguely. Steve's not real forthcoming with details."

Tony's gaze flits to Steve. "Imagine that."

Bucky's mouth quirks. Steve suddenly gets a bad feeling about this. "James Barnes," he says in introduction.

"I know who you are," Tony says, barely moving his lips.

"Same here, pal. That doesn't preclude being polite."

"You haven't earned my politeness."

"All right." Bucky looks to Steve. "I'll shut my mouth then."

Tony snorts his disbelief. "Where does it hurt, _exactly_? Don't say shoulder again."

"Behind the shoulderblade," Bucky says, resigning himself to being manhandled again. "Collar, back. Muscles: here, here, here."

Steve's eyebrows quirk with concern. "Should've said something, Buck."

"Didn't want to make a thing out of it. Can't imagine why."

"You thought it was a boxing injury?" Tony asks.

"Yeah."

"It's not a boxing injury."

Bucky shrugs. "Okay."

Tony watches him carefully. Steve is actually impressed with the level of neutrality he's managing, but when his eyes flit to Steve he realizes he's mistaken exhaustion for calm. 

"Unconscious sixteen hours?" Tony asks.

"Something like that. Is that what Sam told you?"

"It is."

"I'd trust it."

Tony nods as he rolls Bucky's arm around in its joint and holds the simple metal instrument to his collarbone. "5.125," he mutters to himself, though Steve can plainly see the display shows a different number. "Cabinet handles, standard length; approximate weight of a baseball." He looks straight at Bucky. "You like baseball?"

Bucky blinks. "Yeah, I like baseball."

"Who d'you cheer for? Yankees?"

Bucky gives him a scandalized look. " _No._ Brooklyn Dodgers."

"Of course," Tony mutters. "Naturally. You would."

"How they doing, anyhow?"

Steve gives a grim shake of the head. "Los Angeles Dodgers now."

Bucky presses his free hand to his heart and makes a winded sound. "Breaking my heart, Rogers. We get a replacement?"

"Yankees in the Bronx, Mets in Queens. Brooklyn's got zilch."

"Brutal!"

"Pay attention," Tony says snippishly. Bucky turns back to him with an indulgent look. "You play baseball?"

"Used to. Minor leagues. Dropped it when the economy turned. Haven't used those muscles in years, though, doubt that's it."

"These things come back. Pitch with your right?"

"Always been a lefty."

Tony's eyes flit over to where Bucky's left hand is clenched into a loose fist against his leg, and all at once his face turns ashen. He lets go, steps back; folds his hands into fists.

Steve doesn't need more to know to react. "Stark…"

"Don't worry," Tony says, oddly airy. "I won't say anything. I'm not a cruel man." His face darkens. "Unlike others."

" _Tony._ "

"Just give me a second, would you?" Tony flits his gaze up to Steve. Steve feels taken aback by all he sees in it. "Can you give me that much? Or is that beyond the scope of what you've deemed appropriate in your shuttered little world?"

Steve extends a placating hand. "Take a minute. Take an hour. Take a _nap_ , for crying out loud. When's the last time you slept?"

"Oh, suddenly you care?"

"Of course I... _Tony._ " Steve pinches at his eyes. "You always act like the world is cut-and-dry, black and white. You think there's a switch I flipped that made me stop caring about your wellbeing when Bucky showed up? There isn't."

"You've made it very apparent whose side you're on."

"What _sides_? Tony, I want to _help_ you."

"Sure. When it's convenient for you and loverboy here. When the two of you decide it's relevant to your noble cause. Let me ask you something, Cap -- you ever once go that far for anyone who wasn't fucking you on the regular? Or is having the world sacrificed in your name just among the perks of being Steve Rogers' special friend?"

Steve smothers a sound deep in his throat, but the damage is already done; Bucky's staring at his feet, cheeks turning a definitive red. 

Tony, to his credit, seems to have realized he's gone a step too far. He looks to Steve and shrugs in half-hearted apology. 

Steve rubs at his eyes, pressing hard with his fingers. "Bucky..."

"Shut up," Bucky says shortly.

"He's not being -- I know what it sounds like, but he's... I wouldn't put you in the care of a bigot."

"Doesn't matter," he mutters to the floor. "Let's get this over with."

From the way Tony's muttering profanities under his breath, Steve would guess he's battling an entirely unwanted sympathy. "Listen," he says, closing his eyes with distaste. "Rhodey, my partner -- he lives upstate. Romantic, not business. You'd like him; in fact, you do." Bucky flits his eyes up as Tony picks up his arm again. "I might hate your fucking guts, Jimmyboy, but not for that reason."

Bucky stares blankly for another few moments, then flicks his eyes over to Steve, though they only rest for a moment before finding the floor again. 

Steve lets out an audible breath and stares at the ceiling. "What's wrong with his arm," he asks Tony.

The exchange has, at least, apparently distracted Tony from his own distress. "If I had to guess -- and I am guessing -- I'd say the most likely scenario is that the regular tendons and muscles he's supposed to have are trying to figure out how to operate around something in there that doesn't belong."

Steve frowns, effectively refocused. "You're saying not all of him changed back."

He holds up the instrument, as though the numbers on the display are supposed to mean something. "He's magnetic."

Bucky's eyebrows fly up. "I'm what?" he croaks.

"How is that possible?" asks Steve.

"It is almost certainly beyond the bounds of coherent possibility," Stark says. "Everything about this situation is gradually dismantling everything I thought I knew about quantum mechanics, by the way; you two keep breaking rules that were never meant to be broken. There is no sensible reason 95 percent of the steel that's been implanted into this man should be replaced by its organic equivalent only for one minor component to be left behind... unless..."

Tony's expression goes abruptly slack. Steve exchanges a glance with Bucky, then leans forward to try to get Stark's eyes to register something. Tony merely besets himself suddenly back on Bucky's arm, not bothering to acknowledge Steve at all. "You know what? Nevermind," Stark says. "You wouldn't understand it anyhow. I'll wait for Banner to -- but it's an interesting theory. It is definitely very fucking interesting. The metaphysical implications alone are… nevermind. Sorry. Where were we?"

"Magnetic," Bucky says, loudly, in his face.

"Right. Okay, well, he's got metal in there." Stark gestures. "Suffice it to say there's at least one element in him -- at least in this version of him -- that shouldn't be, and it's causing him some discomfort. You know, a bit of pain; bit of stiffness; maybe an eventual paralysis of the left side, absent intervention. But I don't see why--"

"Jesus!" Bucky exclaims.

"Hang on," says Steve.

"Look, I don't know any more about this than you do. I don't know why it's there."

"What kind of intervention we talking about here?"

"Exploratory surgery."

" _No,_ " Steve growls immediately.

"I'd assumed you wouldn't like that," Tony says, steeped with gravitas. "But short of that... look, I can't exactly run an MRI on the asshole. I don't have any kind of special equipment to prevent him from being torn to shreds from within. Don't you have any…" His eyes flit to Bucky. "Any information from the -- from the original… Don't you have schematics of some kind?"

For all the agitation Stark brings with him wherever he goes, Steve can't help but feel a little grateful that he's at least taking a modicum of care on the Hydra angle. "We have T'Challa's tests and research."

"Have you looked through it?"

In fact, Steve's made a point of never looking that closely at the amount of work Bucky's had to have done. "Not in detail," he says thinly.

"Then I'd recommend starting there." Tony wanders over to replace his instrument among the others. "It could be that it doesn't hold any answers either, but, regardless, it seems beyond question there's some element in him that doesn't follow the basic human -- anatomy -- schematic, and therefore couldn't be converted when the rest of him was. Or may have been."

"May have been?"

"Well, if certain bones and muscles in the chest and shoulder were replaced to make the prosthetic work, but Wilson only found the arm itself beside him…?"

Steve's gaze cants to the side with realization. If the metal components of Bucky were truly expelled and replaced by their organic equivalent when Bucky got changed back, then either the other internal replacements made by Hydra were not converted at all, or they are trying to fit in Bucky's body alongside the muscles and bones he was already meant to have.

"Or -- hell, Cap, I dunno. Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe he's gone _full_ cyborg and his heart's made of metal too." Tony gives a terrible smile. "That would explain his utter lack of capacity for compassion or basic human goodness in the present day..."

"Hey!" Bucky objects at the same time Steve grinds, "Stark."

"Look, there's no doubt his muscles and tendons are working around _something_ ; probably straining around it every time he moves. Surprised he's not facing an immune response, but you folks always were old fashioned. Of course, if his heart really _is_ made of steel, that would explain a _lot--_ "

"What did I do to you, exactly?" Bucky says loudly, apparently reaching a breaking point. "I fuck your sister or something?"

One look at Tony's face is all Steve needs to know this detente has reached its end. Tony looks between Bucky and Steve, and then off into the distance, scoffing theatrically. "If I had a sister -- which I don't -- but if I did, I'd send the entire Iron Legion to put you down before you could so much as look her way. Believe me."

"And we're done." Steve steps forward to collect Tony by the collar. It's unnecessarily aggressive, he knows, and Tony reacts predictably; he throws Steve's arm aside and steps forward with menacing intent.

"Just try it," Tony says, low in his throat. "We're in _my_ house, you ungrateful prick. Just see how far you get."

Steve holds his ground, but doesn't touch him again. After a few seething breaths, Tony steps back and gathers his tools in one hand, then glares over his shoulder at where Bucky sits caught between bewilderment and tension. 

"You know," he says, voice coarse with fury, "I wish, with _all_ of my being, that you were this smug of a bastard all the time. I would loathe you with the abandon you deserve and I'd be better for it."

Bucky shakes his head, incredulous. "Pal, I don't know what I did to you, but have you ever thought about, I dunno... getting over it?" Bucky makes a gesture like a plane taking off with his hand. "Y'know... moving the fuck on? Because I've just met you this minute, but even so I can't help but feel like whatever it is ain't so much on me anymore. Even I can see you're struggling with what's eating you a little harder than you should."

Tony nods and looks askance, mouth thin. "Guess you'd know a little something about that, huh?"

Bucky's chin rises as though in acknowledgement, despite himself, and Tony seems to derive enough satisfaction from it to turn and walk away. 

Steve watches him stride toward the door; waits until the elevator comes before he so much as moves a muscle.

Then they're alone again.

Bucky's staring at the ceiling when Steve looks over to him. "You okay?" Steve asks, quiet.

Bucky inhales, then exhales; looks at him grimly. "They replace my whole left side with metal, then? Is that it?"

"Bucky, I'm -- _sorry_."

"It would be a lot _easier_ ," he says, "if you'd tell me these things _upfront._ "

Steve shoves his hands into his pockets. "I… tried. On the one front, at least."

Bucky turns away from him and looks down the hall, feet kicking idly under the table he's sitting on. "Yeah," he says, hollow. "Guess you did."

"Do you want to… talk… about it?"

Inexplicably, Bucky smiles, though there's an odd sadness to it. "I'm trying to talk about the fact that the left side of my _body's_ been replaced, Rogers. Can you focus?"

"Sorry."

"What _happened_ to me?"

"You -- fell."

"I _fell_."

"From a high… listen. It's more that the people who found you after the fall, Bucky, the people who gave you the prosthetic… they thought it would be more advantageous if you had something that functioned like an arm instead of… you know… a prosthetic. I guess that necessitated a lot of replacement."

"Muscles. Bones. All with -- steel, somehow."

"A light, flexible steel-like alloy, but… yeah."

"Required extensive surgery."

Steve nods.

"And I -- agreed to this, somehow."

HIs pressing silence is answer enough.

The fall of Bucky's face is gradual, incremental, almost invisible; but Steve sees it. 

"Bucky," he says -- nearly a whisper, horrifically desperate.

"Shut the _fuck_ up, Rogers, and let me think."

Silence falls; suffocates them both. Bucky stares straight down the hall, eyes out of focus as he tries to process. His hands are set flat against the table by his sides, the fingers of his left hand extending straight and taut, as though to feel the chill of the surface beneath him. 

Steve waits with him; breathes in shallow gulps. He sees something like mist forming in the corner of Bucky's eyes and extends a halting hand, but Bucky swats impatiently without even looking at him.

"You want me to -- leave you alone?" Steve asks.

" _No._ Stop asking me that. Don't you--"

Emotion strangles his words. Steve hates not knowing what to do, hates not touching him; settles for leaning his hands beside him against the table, trying to help him by proximity alone.

"So I," Bucky says, but has to swallow in the middle of it. "So I was -- taken prisoner. Is that it?"

Steve watches his face, but eventually nods. "Yeah."

"Out of the war?"

"Yeah, Buck."

"And then…" He trails off. "That's the three years I don't _remember._ "

"That's -- the only outright lie I've told you, Bucky. You… you remember them, now."

"But I _didn't_. Before."

"You didn't know who... you were, for a while."

"I didn't know who I _was_?"

Steve shuts his eyes in regret. He's not sure he's helping anymore. "You -- you--"

"They made me…"

Bucky doesn't want to say it. Steve doesn't want to hear it, either. "Yeah, Buck. They -- it's not fair, what they did to you."

Bucky's jaw clenches. His eyelids flicker with all he's holding back. "Three _years_."

"Yeah."

"But I'm still -- I'm _okay._ I'm okay, now. In your world. I'm... me."

Steve moves his hand so it covers Bucky's fingers on the table, and thank god Bucky lets him, because the distance hurt as bad as the rest. "Yeah, Bucky. You're--"

Bucky looks at him sidelong; bows his head when Steve cuts off.

"Tell me."

"Bucky..."

" _Say it._ To hell with you and your goddamn secrets."

"You told me to shut up about it already, I just--"

"When the homicidal maniac was here? Come on, Rogers, it's on _you,_ didn't I say that? It's on you, and you can't make me--"

"You're _my_ Bucky," Steve blurts out, and he's surprised by what a relief it is to hear himself say it. "In the present. You're -- I swear to you, Buck, you've been through some -- but there's no doubt at all that you are who you are, and I--"

Bucky raises his head; doesn't withdraw, but doesn't look at him either.

"I know you pretty well," Steve finishes, lashes set low.

" _How_ well do you know me, exactly?"

It's halting, but still an invitation for the truth. Steve smiles, tragic and helpless. "You want the romantic version?"

"I want the _accurate_ version."

"I, um..." He's nervous, but on the other hand this is easy; a smile blooms on his face, like he could be talking about anything. "I fell for you... I dunno, Bucky. Years ago. I loved you for sure by 1936 already, I can say that much."

Bucky frowns; looks at him sidelong. "I don't think so."

"Believe me, Buck. I'm crazy for you, when you're from. If you think about it you'll be able to tell." 

A long pause. Steve reaches out haltingly, brushing his fingers at the back of Bucky's neck. He revels in the way he shuts his eyes; the sound of his exhale. 

"So we," Bucky says, then swallows; he leans into Steve's touch, a little. "We just--"

"We get together. Eventually. Not long from now."

"When?"

"'37."

Bucky looks him in the eye, that time, eyebrows steepling. " _Nineteen_ thirty-seven?"

Steve nods. "It wasn't the risk it feels like now. You get a better job, things start to feel a lot more stable..."

"So we've been--" He stops; takes in a staggering breath. "What do we even _call_ this?"

"I -- dunno, actually. We don't talk about it much."

"We _fuck_ , but we don't _talk_ about it?"

Steve coughs with helpless laughter, delighted just to hear Bucky acknowledge it. "We're still pretty stoic in the future, Buck. Can't think where we got it from."

"Then how long have we been -- whatever?"

"About three years, before the war; then we took a break, I'll leave it to you to find out why. Still saw each other, though; served on the same unit until '44, then spent a couple years together again on this side of the ice. So I guess about five years, on and off."

"So we -- we spend three years doing… _whatever_ , even though it's -- before it stops being -- with the -- laws, and--"

"Yeah, Buck." Steve scans his thumb at Bucky's wrist, trying for calming. "It's worth the risk."

" _How_? Isn't it--"

"Hey. Breathe."

Bucky's head falls back, face pointed to the ceiling.

"It's worth it to feel like… we're worth something, Bucky." Steve says it to soothe him, and maybe it works, because as he speaks Bucky moves his middle finger to mesh between Steve's where they lie over his on the table. "To each other, if to no one else."

"And we -- never get caught?"

"No," Steve says, studying their fingers where they overlap. "We never get caught."

"And -- on this side of time. Or whatever."

"Yeah?"

"We start where we left off?"

"A few adjustments, but… yeah. We -- remember." He gives a fluttering breath of laughter. "There's... a lot that we remember, Bucky. It's not that difficult to go back."

"So we -- it's -- you're somehow _okay_ with the way I…" He gestures at his left side.

"Oh, yeah, Bucky, hey. Yeah. It doesn't touch you."

"It seems like it fucking touches me a little, Rogers."

"Okay. Fair enough. But it doesn't touch me. I love you now the way I did then, or… more, maybe. I dunno."

Bucky looks at him, pained, like he doesn't understand; like he can't quite believe it. Steve raises a hand and Bucky lets him set the length of his thumb along his jaw without flinching or turning away; lets him set his fingers at his neck. "You've survived a lot, Bucky. This thing we have is good, it's so -- I don't care what else you believe, but you gotta know it's always good between you and me."

Bucky leans into his touch again and it's all Steve wants just to put his nose there behind his ear, to press his lips against his neck; to take in the smell of him, that hair, pomade and cigarettes.

Bucky's eyelashes are low as he focuses on a point on the floor. Tension thrums, grows harsher between them. "So tell me," he grits out.

"Tell you what?"

Bucky swallows; opens his mouth, then closes it again; licks his lips. The finger propped over Steve's bends, abrupt, then strokes as it straightens out over his knuckles, one at a time. 

"How it feels," he says.

Steve aims to leave some room for doubt, for negotiation, for a way out of this conversation if he needs it; but Bucky doesn't take the opportunity afforded by pause. He doesn't hasten to clarify that he could mean anything else than what's on Steve's mind.

"To love you?" Steve asks, quiet.

"No," Bucky mutters. "I already know what that feels like."

Steve's heart rate speeds up. He knows it shouldn't. He reaches out and traces, hesitant, the line of Bucky's jaw again, entranced by its angles. "How it feels to, um… When I kiss you, Buck? Is that what you mean?" 

The breath leaves Bucky's chest fast enough to make a sound. "Yeah," he says. "I guess that's…"

Steve curls his fingers around the back of Bucky's neck when he goes silent, and then he lets go, drawing a trailing knuckle against the pulsepoint at his throat instead. "It's the best thing, Bucky. Sometimes it's the only thing that feels right."

Bucky swallows; opens his eyes. "I…" He raises his head; faces Steve with sudden determination, fingers closing over his hand against the table. "I, uh…"

The elevator doors shudder open down the hall. 

Bucky jumps five feet away from Steve in one swift gesture.

He should've expected it, but Steve still shuts his eyes, full with regret. When he opens them again he sees Natasha, looking carefully between them. 

"I'm interrupting," she says, tablet in hand.

"No," Steve and Bucky say at once.

Natasha hums, knowing better. "No problem. I'll find somewhere else to be."

"Wait," Bucky says, somewhat weak. "Stay. I need a smoke anyway. Keep Steve company, would you, he seems... lonely."

She cocks an eyebrow and looks to Steve, who tries for a wan smile but knows from experience he manages only sorrow. 

"Lonely, huh?" she says.

"What can I do for you, Natasha?" Steve asks, weary.

"Nothing. I was really just trying to find somewhere out of the way. Obviously I failed. I'll get out of your hair."

Steve gestures her forward with a beckoning motion. "Let's see it."

She holds the tablet aloft and looks scandalized by his presumption. "This isn't _for you_. I'm just clearing out of the science floor." A rare lapse in her put-upon expression: a flicker of bitterness. "Little crowded up there."

"Ah. Banner finally get here?"

"Looking real sorry, too. Couldn't stand it for long."

"You'd prefer he was righteous?"

"You say that like he's not managing both at once." She waves a hand. "The problem will keep him occupied, then he'll stop being mine."

"Aha," Bucky says, quiet and self-satisfied.

Natasha looks to him, mouth quirking. "What?"

"Nothing, I just… knew you had to be involved with someone." 

It seems Natasha's not in the mood. Her expression drops. "And why's that?"

Bucky opens his mouth, then closes it again as he registers the trap. "No reason," he says, eyes narrow.

"That's what I thought." She holds the tablet aloft again and turns to the door. "If anyone comes looking for me, tell them I've gone out. Or maybe just tell them to go to hell, depending on who's asking."

"You got it. Hey, you want me to throw him out a window for you? Think Bucky's kind of disappointed I didn't manage it when Stark was here, could make a good show."

"No, that's okay. Think we kinda need him to stay Banner." She turns around as she waits for the elevator. "Stark was here?"

"Long story."

She shrugs and turns away again. "So you might still throw him out a window."

Steve nudges an elbow in Bucky's direction. "Hope yet."

Bucky looks at the floor with a reluctant smile.

The elevator dings; the doors open; Natasha steps in with a passing wave. 

Then they're alone again.

Steve turns to Bucky at once. "Buck, I'm not trying to--"

"I know," Bucky says, low and resigned.

"I'm just trying to--"

"I know you are, Rogers."

"I don't know what you..."

"Me neither." Bucky takes in a full breath and lets it out, slow. "I don't know what I… either. I don't know anything, alright? I'm sorry for that."

"No reason to be sorry. We leave things as they are. No pressure, no problem."

Bucky opens his mouth to the floor, but doesn't quite seem to manage his words. "Yeah," he manages. "Sure, Rogers. Whatever." Then, on the tail end of a sigh: "God, I wish I was drunk right now."

Steve frowns. "It's nine in the morning."

"Time isn't real, Rogers. Case in fucking point."

"Indulge me."

"Fine. Then I need about three dozen cigarettes."

Steve opens his mouth to object to that too, but then waves a dismissive hand. "Fine," he sighs. "Go. I'll talk to Sam, try to figure out what comes next." He watches Bucky pat himself down, as though trying to remember where he left the carton, and frowns with a budding idea. "Hey -- there anything you want to see in the present? If they don't need us?"

Bucky opens his mouth, then closes it again. "Can we get to Brooklyn?" he asks at last, wincing pre-emptively.

Steve hesitates. "Uh…"

"Forget it. I just wanted to go and look at the water." He gestures in Steve's general direction. "That photograph you showed me, looked like the Hudson. Let's go there."

"Oh." That's easy enough. "Sure. Won't be so quiet anymore."

"Don't care about that."

Steve nods. "You want me with you?"

" _Yes_ already, what is this? I love you for five years, out loud and everything, and you still got this inferiority complex?" It's unexpected, Steve grins wide; and if Bucky rolls his eyes, he's soon smiling, too. "I do a shit job or something?"

"You've done a fine job. You just like your time alone."

Bucky makes a face. "Why?"

"Come on, Buck, you go off on your own all the time and tell me to stay out of it where you're from."

"Right, but you're sick as a dog, for one thing. For another, you're a shit-disturber. Hard to date when you're always frothing at the mouth about something or other."

"I don't -- _froth_.

"For a third thing, _you're_ always telling _me_ to leave _you_ alone. Seems you don't care much about that anymore."

"Aw, Buck, that's just me being an angry kid. I always want you around."

Bucky smiles despite himself and picks at the sleeve of his shirt. "That's what I'm saying, Rogers."

"Well, then I guess you're where I got it from then."

"That or I got it from you." He shrugs and sets off toward the kitchen. "Either way we're both goddamn pathetic, so you done trying to shove me off already?"

"Yeah, Buck. I'm done."

"Fantastic." He returns, waving his cigarettes triumphantly in hand. "I need to be made modern in some unknowable way before we go out?"

"No. You look pretty good."

"Pretty good!" Bucky reaches to primp his collar, but it's an absurd gesture given his sweatshirt. "I have it on fairly solid authority I'm handsomer than the devil himself."

"Your mother doesn't count as testimonial."

"That one's from you, actually," Bucky says with a quirk of his jaw; and Steve's left to smile faintly after him as he spins over toward the balcony, stepping with some unknowable grace he doesn't know he has.

The second the door shuts behind him, Steve collapses on his hands over the table; breathes deep, eyes closed, and tries to find ground.

Okay.

_Fuck._

He is definitely not dealing with this situation as well as he'd like.

  


  


* * *

  


  


There aren't any roofs to sit on the way they used to, but they do find a wall that overlooks the water and it turns out that's good enough.

Bucky sits atop the wall and chainsmokes in relative silence, apparently too overwhelmed by Manhattan to say much. Steve answers the questions Bucky intersperses between long pauses best he can -- ("So all of New York is like this now?" "Yep." "Brooklyn too?" "Brooklyn too. Different than Midtown, I guess." "Aren't they gonna run out of room, they keep building like this?" "Don't think that's a concern." "Where the hell are the docks?" "Half of 'em gone, other half tucked away." "How do people make a living nowadays then?" "Honestly, Buck, it beats the hell out of me.") -- and otherwise just sits with him, trying to help make sense of all this.

The only problem is: whatever Steve had been fighting back in Stark Tower is somehow worse out here. Seeing Bucky in the world with that jaw, with his hair thrown back by day-old pomade and the constant pull of his anxious fingers -- the way he looks every time his lips wrap around that cigarette--

It turns out that watching him smoke is as devastating as it used to be. Steve does his best not to look at him too hard, but he finds nothing else strikes him as interesting.

Apart from his few questions -- ("So Natasha and Banner, huh?" "Why are you so hung up on this?" "She's a beautiful girl; smart. Fond of you." " _Me?_ Oh, Bucky, no. I want you." "Alright, nevermind." "What can I say here?" "Nothing, Rogers, I said nevermind.") -- Bucky barely moves until Steve's phone buzzes.

Bucky looks out over the river and drags from his cigarette. "They want us back?"

"Banner wants to debrief us."

"They want me there?"

"Yeah. Think you can handle it?"

"I can handle it."

"You sure?"

Bucky shrugs and tosses the empty carton in the trash can behind them, then throws his feet back over the wall, puffing aggressively on his cigarette. It's so full of lost youth that Steve feels the stir of that decades-old lust rise up again just to watch him do it. "Let me stop at the tobacconist first… with… no money."

Steve sighs and takes out his wallet. "It's gonna be about fifteen bucks, try not to balk."

Bucky grabs the bill Steve hands him and examines it carefully, probably glad for something that looks familiar. "Fifteen _dollars_? For a pack of cigarettes?"

"You could just as soon not buy 'em."

"Yeah, real fucking funny," Bucky says, smiling ruefully. "Fifteen bucks. Crock of shit."

He points down the street at a newspaper stand. "See for yourself."

Bucky shoots him a doubtful glance and sets off to where Steve's pointed. Steve looks down at his phone to reply to Sam again; then, not paying attention, he nearly smacks into Bucky where he's stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk. 

A Macy's advertisement hangs at the bus stop. The text in the bottom corner alludes to wedding registries, while two men stare into each other's eyes in the image, grinning, unmistakably intimate.

Bucky's eyes search the panel as though for evidence this is a joke. "The hell am I looking at?" he mutters.

Steve smiles, tired and fond. "Didn't I tell you?"

" _Legal_ and _promoted_ are two different things, jackass!"

"It's a promotion for Macy's, not for gay marriage."

"Fuck if I can tell!"

Steve watches Bucky as he stares at the sign and can't help but to smile at him, in all the ways he knows he shouldn't. 

A voice from ahead: "You two thinking about getting married?"

A man peers at them from the bus stop. Bucky looks suspicious, but Steve reads his friendliness easily. 

"We've talked about it," Steve admits. Bucky looks at him like he's grown a second head. 

The man nods at Bucky conspiratorially. "I know that look. My husband wasn't too sure either, but I bullied him into it before a repealment bill could _begin_ to be tabled. It really worked out for us, I can only recommend it. You can always get divorced, but god knows how long you can still get married." The man waves a hand in the air, he's shouting over traffic; a quick glance sidelong tells Steve that Bucky's too shocked to form words at the brazenness of the exchange. "A lot of planning companies are specializing in gay weddings now -- making a statement and all that. They'd give you a discounted rate. Ask around."

Gratitude to this man, both for speaking up at the precise best moment possible and for trying to help them at all, explodes warm in Steve's chest. "Thank you," he says, extending a hand. "We'll shout out to you in our vows."

"You better invite me then," he says, and then laughs loudly. Led by delight alone, Steve joins him as they shake hands for slightly longer than seems necessary. Bucky watches the whole exchange with wide, incredulous eyes.

"Roberto," the man says in introduction.

"Grant," Steve says, as easy as anything. He nudges Bucky in the back with his elbow.

"Jim," Bucky manages, sounding strange.

"You make a cute couple, Jim and Grant. I wish you the very best. And _register,_ for God's sake!" he calls, giving them a final salute as he goes to board his approaching bus. "It saved our lives!"

Steve grins after him and returns the wave. He can't help it; he couldn't have timed that better if he'd paid him.

Bucky, meanwhile, turns to face Steve, mouth agape with shock. Steve only smiles at him, hands shoving humbly in his pockets. 

" _We've talked about it?_ " Bucky croaks.

Steve can't help it; he grins and hooks an elbow around Bucky's neck. "We have talked about it."

"We _have_?" 

"You just don't remember." Steve buries his nose against his temple as they set down the street. "Been telling you I like you, haven't I?"

"Jesus Christ," says Bucky, "this is one hell of a dream"; and just from the tone of his voice, Steve doesn't bother to argue, nor -- just this once -- does he say a word about it when Bucky pulls him aside to buy his damned cigarettes.

  


  


* * *

  


  


Banner looks at Bucky like he's the most fascinating thing he's ever seen.

"Look at you," Banner marvels, taking off his glasses. "Wow. Okay. Nineteen years old, huh?" He holds out his hand. "Bruce Banner."

"James Barnes." Bucky looks relieved that someone's introduced themselves to _him_ rather than the other way around. "We've met before?"

"Just the once."

"Sorry I don't remember."

"That's not your fault, don't worry about that. In fact, don't worry about anything if you can possibly help it. We're gonna fix this, or at the very least we're gonna try our level best. No guarantees, I mean… this whole situation is pretty weird."

Bucky looks grateful that someone other than Steve is trying to reassure him for a change. "Yeah. It is. I, uh… appreciate it. Guess you came a long way."

"Just from New Zealand."

"Oh," Bucky drawls. "Is that all?"

"I'm doing a… thing. Not important. At least, not as important as this. Hope you don't mind me saying, but you're a fascinating problem. Time travel and all, I mean -- wow. This the first time anything like this has happened to you?"

"Dear God, I hope so."

Steve laughs, not expecting it. Banner looks to him; smiles warmly. "Hi, Steve. How you doing?"

"Oh, you know me," Steve says, taking his outstretched hand. "Happy to be old again, I'll say that much."

"Well, wait until you're pushing fifty."

"I got fifty years on you already, son."

"Sleeping doesn't count in my books, but I appreciate the effort to make me feel young."

The fact is that Steve can see age clearly marked on Banner's face: his hair is decidedly more salt-and-pepper than anything else, the tufts by his temples having long since completely greyed. With his glasses off, the lines around his eyes seem impossibly pronounced. 

"You seem to be doing all right," Steve says anyway, gesturing at the table. Though Sam and Natasha have retreated to the back corner and stay muttering to each other over a tablet, Tony has seen fit to throw himself into a chair already, staring at the calculations on the wall with singular, despondent focus. Wanda, meanwhile, sits across from him, watching him with similar -- if more contemptuous -- interest.

"I keep busy," Banner says.

"That helps."

"It certainly can." He scratches at the back of his neck with a stylus. "So are you ready to hear about this?"

Bucky shrugs, barely distracted from his benign fascination with the tech splain around the room. "Ready as I'll ever be," he mutters eventually, pulling out a chair. Steve watches as he throws himself into it and looks up at the calculations, wringing his fingers anxiously through his hair.

"Long day?" Steve asks him dryly, sitting down beside him.

"Weird day, I'll give you that."

Steve opens his mouth to reply, but only winds up clicking his tongue when Bucky reaches to play with his hair again. "Leave it, would you?" He sculpts Bucky's hair away from his eyes, away from any need to be touched.

Bucky makes the kind of exaggerated grimace that leaves Steve grinning, despite himself. "Let me do what I want, would you?"

"What's wrong with it the way it is?"

"Everything! Still touches my damn forehead, I hate that more than anything. We've been out in the world and no one's blinked an eye, just let me slick it back already."

"It'd look ridiculous."

"Since when?"

"Since the '60s."

"It's 1936, pal, I got twenty-plus years with that hairstyle left."

"Just," Steve says, and puts Bucky's hair back where it was when Bucky tries to plaster it flat against his head again. "Leave it."

"What's this about?"

"You don't know how beautiful your hair can be, Bucky. Indulge me."

Bucky looks utterly bewildered. "It's _hair_!"

Steve only takes his phone out of his pocket and starts scrolling through his photostream.

"Not the photographs again!" Bucky groans.

"Here," Steve says, showing him the Bucky on the screen. His hair, long and leaving Steve with a distant pang in his gut, frames Bucky's face: it's only halfway tied back as he chews on his cheek in concentration, reading over some report. Steve scrolls to the next; this one shows his hair down, freshly washed, waving gently, Bucky's face buried in his pillow to shield it from the sun in sleep. "Look at that," Steve says, gesturing. He scrolls to the next, of Bucky holding back his own hair in apparent consternation, lacking a hair tie. "Pomade's not good enough for that mane, Buck."

Bucky doesn't say anything for a long time. When Steve looks over, he finds Bucky staring at him instead of at the photos. He snatches the phone out of Steve's hand and starts scrolling through the images, one at a time, and Steve can't tell if he's been transfixed by these images of his older self now that he understands more about him or if this is a mockery of the fact that Steve has so many sequential photos of Bucky doing everyday things on his phone.

And there are many, to his discredit: there's Bucky raising his face to the sun, eyes closed, his skin caked with dirt after a mission. There he is down on his haunches, grocery bags set around him on all sides as he holds a hesitant hand out to a cat they'd passed on the street. There, he grins right at the camera, wry and seductive, in only sweatpants as he lies on their sofa; and here's two in more intense, pensive moments, first by their front room window and then staring out over the city from the very conference room they've spent most of the last days in.

Bucky doesn't even look at him as he hands Steve his phone back, pink tingeing on his cheeks. "Thought you said you stopped doing art."

Steve looks backward through his photos, seeing for the first time what it apparently took Bucky instants to figure out: these are the exact moments Steve used to spend hours drawing him in, somehow finding a new perspective day after day that seemed worthy of record. 

"Well," he croaks, "I… guess you've just always been some kind of picturesque to me, Buck."

There's a thick pause while Bucky watches the table, that tension cloying between them again; but then they register that the room has gone silent around them. Steve looks up to find five faces stare back in varying stages of annoyance, or, in Natasha's case, overt delight. 

"It blushes," Tony remarks mildly, eyes on Bucky.

Bucky hitches his hood high over his head. "Starting to get the appeal of these sweatshirts."

"Sorry," Steve says, smiling sheepishly. "Should we get started?"

Banner gestures with a laser pointer at some of the information on the wall, saving them both from the sighs that cascade around the room. "Okay, so..." he begins; but then, to Steve's surprise, he stops and shrugs, as though surrendering to abandon. "Basically, we have no idea what's going on."

A stunned pause follows. 

"Okay," Steve says, when no one else speaks. "Well, thanks for coming, Bruce."

"There's more."

"There's more we don't know?"

"Actually… yes." Banner points at him thoughtfully. "That's more or less the crux of the issue. Based on what Stark and Wanda have told me, I've more or less been able to confirm the theories that they came up with: that we don't understand what's happening. We _can't_ understand what's happening. This is beyond our…" He stops; sighs. "Look, I don't like this either, but the summary of the current situation is that we are never gonna find the answer to this question. Not without years and years of research, probably decades, and a few willing participants for -- you know--"

"Experimentation," Steve finishes.

"Yeah."

"We're not doing that."

"I'm with you," Banner insists. Stark rolls his eyes and mouths something that looks suspiciously like _'willing' participants._ "That means, though, that we have to resign ourselves to solving this problem without solving the problem."

"You've lost me," Steve says, blinking bewilderedly.

Banner wheels his workboard to the side and projects a display onto the wall that looks to Steve to be complete nonsense. "Okay. The issue is basically twofold. On the one hand we have the quantum mechanics angle -- that's the stuff we mostly, kinda understand. You, Steve, are made up of entangled particles linked together by a quantum field; those particles basically communicated with this one point in time in 1936 and traded you down to that form, collectively. But because you and Barnes are both, you know, enhanced individuals, your particles also had to make some corrections as they changed forms. The breakthrough is that they were not only able to make those corrections to yield your past form, they were also actually able to make the corrections in the opposite direction as well." Banner takes off his glasses again and throws them down on the table. "Your particles spontaneously recreated the serum in you -- both the serum itself, that is, and its subsequent effects -- despite that no actual serum was introduced, obviously, when you aged up. That is, I'm afraid, supposed to be impossible."

"You broke science," Tony says, half-yelling in Steve's direction.

"Technically," Banner corrects, "the Enhanced broke science."

Tony points at Wanda. " _You_ broke science."

"I'll take that credit," she says, "since it's infuriated you so much."

"Wanda's not at fault," Steve says.

"That's right," Tony says, pointing at him again. "You're the original. I was right the first time. _You_ broke science."

Bucky leans over. "Am I hearing this right, Rogers? You hate science so much you actually _broke_ it?"

"Technically Erskine broke science," Steve says mildly.

"Yeah, but you're still alive," Tony remarks. "Much more convenient target."

Steve looks up at Banner, sighing. "So it's impossible... except for how it happened."

"Exactly. Going big to small, the effect of Keaton's mutation was basically just to reverse the serum. That was not so hard for the particles to figure out; but going the other way, your particles actually recreated the serum from scratch. Normally, two things are required for the kind of reaction that turned you into Big Steve: the introduction of chemicals -- the serum -- and extreme physical duress, usually in the form of torture. Neither of these were present the second time, but your body somehow turned back anyway, as though they were." Banner shrugs at Steve helplessly. "Based on the science we actually _know_ , it actually seems more likely to me that you should have been turned into some shrimpy version of 2018 Steve."

Steve's eyebrows knit high on his forehead. "I could've gotten my memory back, but stayed small?"

"In fact, you _should_ have. There's no way, based on what we know about biology, that cells or particles or matter at any designation should remember how a mutation was enacted at some point in the past, let alone how to recreate it on command. But they did. The particle field that is Steve Rogers somehow, encouraged by the effects of Keaton's mutation, remembered and recreated it all. 

"Now," Banner continues, "memory in cells is not totally unheard of. There are such things as memory cells, named for what you'd expect: they can recognize foreign bodies -- infections and the like -- if they've been exposed to them before, and they know how to respond accordingly. We all have memory cells in our bodies, but obviously not all cells are memory cells. Best I can discern, what happened to you while turning back is very much like that -- only the 'infection,' in this case the serum, was actually spontaneously recreated by a field-wide mutation. There was no actual introduction of the serum into your body. Within the bounds of the analogy, in turning you back into big Steve, your body produced both the infection and the immune response to it, without either being applied externally -- just because it remembered the stimulus and the reaction being applied in some point in the past."

"Okay," Steve says, weary. "I understood maybe half of that, but I'm flagging on something else here. I wasn't tortured the first time I underwent the serum's effects, either."

Banner looks suddenly uncomfortable. "Actually… you were."

"No, I wasn't. They really just put me in a chamber and then added the chemical effects."

"And did it hurt?"

"Well… yeah."

"Like, a lot? Like you kinda wondered if you were gonna survive it at all? Like, at the last moment before you were pretty sure you were gonna die, the serum started taking effect?"

Steve narrows his eyes at him. "Yeah…"

Banner sighs sympathethically. "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, Steve, but those procedures… they were _built_ to be intense enough to kill you. There was more than a 50/50 chance that you would've died instead; probably the odds were significantly worse than that." He gestures loosely to Wanda. "Turns out the only thing that successfully generates enhanced abilities in people who weren't born with them is extreme physical stress applied to the point where mutations start to manifest in order to save your life, aided by a chemical agent to help the process along."

Wanda raises a defensive hand. "Lang knows a guy who was told as much. I'm just relaying the information."

"A guy?"

"An invulnerable guy," she says dryly.

"Oh, good. Glad to know there are some of those in the world." Steve waves Bucky off, who'd beset him with wide eyes from the first allegation of torture. "I'm assuming you -- _were_ tortured?"

Wanda nods, drawing idly on a tablet.

Steve points to Banner. "You weren't, though."

"Not in the sense of being tied down and electrocuted," Banner admits, "but I found the exact right chemical compound that would have killed me on its own, that also happened to have precisely the right stressors to create an enhanced response. It turns out I am very, very good at my job in all the worst respects." He sighs; flips to a new slide. "This time travel situation has taught me a lot about my own condition, unexpectedly. Basically I gave myself a dose of what you got so strong it would've killed me even without external torture, and then I mutated because I effectively enacted chemical torture on myself. The big guy emerged to compensate, and now my physiology's altered so that the slightest dump of adrenaline overwhelms my system and starts that near-death experience all over again. Big guy keeps coming back. Forever." He gives Steve a wan smile; a muscle twitches in his neck. "Anyway, Barnes, if it makes you feel any better, there's someone in the world with even more hubris than Steve here."

But Bucky seems to have stopped paying attention to Banner altogether. "You submitted to a _near-death experience, voluntarily_?" he hisses at Steve, who merely waves him off again.

"This is all great," Sam says, rubbing furiously at his forehead, "and by great I obviously mean that we have to stop Hydra from manufacturing Enhanced abilities, like, yesterday, but can we go back to the part where physics doesn't matter anymore?"

"Don't say that," Tony says weakly.

"It doesn't," says Banner.

"Don't say that!" Tony wails.

"We figure that we have an okay grasp on the biological processes here just based on the precedent Steve set. We think Barnes will turn back into his present-day self pretty easily, once we figure out how to instigate that process. His particles won't care that they're remembering a process they've technically never gone through; they'll do it anyway, so we don't have to worry about the 'hows' in that respect. Our problem is figuring out how to start the process in the first place. This is where physics fails us." 

Banner flips to a new slide of utter incomprehensibility. "The only way, so far as we can tell, that particles would 'remember' how to create a serum and its subsequent effects out of time is if time does not matter the way we think it does. Unfortunately for us, we all exist in a world of linear time, so we can't figure it out. It's like -- it's like if we were trying to move Barnes from this side of the room to that one, but we keep talking about this side of the room as 1936 and that side of the room as 2018. We're calling the process we're trying to make him undergo by the wrong name. Until we figure out what the hell that process actually _is_ , there's no understanding how to get Barnes from here to there, because we're gonna keep thinking about it like it's time."

Bucky glances at Steve, then surprises him by leaning hesitantly toward Banner. "But didn't we already know time's not linear? Or, theorized, or whatever… Can't we work this using relativity as a thought experiment, or something?"

Tony dramatically rolls his eyes. Banner, meanwhile, smiles appreciatively and braces himself against the table. "You know a bit about it?"

"Sure," Bucky says, then points at Sam's tablet. "Listen, will this thing let me write?"

Sam slides out the stylus and switches apps, then hands the unit over to him. Bucky resigns himself to the tech with a slow exhale and tests the stylus against the screen, as though it might shock him. "Okay, so -- Einstein's relativity." He draws a vector between two points: one labeled 1936, the other labeled 2018. "We, so long as we're conscious, see time like the line, progressing in one direction. Lots of factors affect that perception, though. We're moving at a specific velocity with a specific relationship to the centre of the Earth and the other cosmic bodies we got up there. Because we're sitting reasonably close to each other and experiencing these factors in the same way at the same time, everyone in this room experiences time in roughly the same way." Bucky draws a thick vertical line beneath his previous drawing, then labels it 1936 on top and 2018 on the bottom. "So here you got Keaton, who seems to be able to skip all this--" he points to the horizontal timeline above -- "whenever he wants. He experiences these two points in time simultaneously, despite only having a physical form in the present." He looks up at Wanda. "Sound right?"

She nods. "So far."

Steve looks between them in confusion. "When did you two have a conversation?"

"You fell asleep, we were awake, we chatted a bit," Bucky says, waving him to quiet. "So we can use our existing theoretical framework for time; all we really have to do is figure out why he perceives it different from us to understand it a little better. Like -- pretend the issue is simpler. What if… what if he lived both of these at once?" He brackets both his drawings together and labels them _Keaton_ in combination. "Pretend like there are two observers at two different points, but they're actually both the same person. Can't it be possible that he experienced all the moments in between the two points and lived to be a hundred like a normal person, like us, while some part of him got stuck in 1936 and stopped passing through time? Or what about a length contraction effect, where time is a physical plane that Keaton is both in and somehow outside of? He'd perceive time passed to be two different lengths at once… y'know?" But then Bucky seems to lose his nerve; he shakes his head and throws the stylus to the centre of the table, as though embarrassed. "But, uh... I lift metal all day, right? Fuck if I know anything, don't listen to me."

But from the way Tony, Bruce, Wanda, and Sam all stare at Bucky like he's grown a third head, Steve thinks he must know more than he thinks.

"When the hell'd you learn all that?" Tony asks venomously.

"I read," Bucky says defensively.

"About _theoretical physics_?"

"He does," Steve says with a smile. "Did, anyway. Used to love that stuff. Read it all the time, allegedly 'for fun'."

"It is fun," Bucky mutters.

"You telling me you had all that knowledge this whole time and you never said anything?" Tony asks.

He looks bewildered by the interrogation. "Have I not?"

Banner waves at them from where he's frantically writing equations on the wall. "I think he's hit on something. I didn't consider time to be the stable factor, while consciousness was the thing that split. Two perceptions…"

"I tried to tell you," Wanda insists.

"You did, you did. I just wasn't ready to listen. It _would_ mean consciousness is capable of being split... or existing at least partially independent from the body?"

"No," Sam groans, putting his head down on the table again. "No, no, no. No mind/body problems. I can't do any more, not today."

Banner points to Wanda with his stylus. "You deal with consciousness."

"Yes."

"Is it possible consciousness was somehow split in the course of Keaton's mutation developing?"

"It would seem anything is possible," she says dryly.

"True enough. God!" Banner smacks his forehead. "How did I not see it? Time as a singular, physical plane, twice perceived. Physical entities can't exist in two places in time at once, but maybe they can move between two points, with the right conduit. Could it be that simple?"

"Simple!" Sam objects, resurfacing.

"That would mean Keaton was made Enhanced in 1936, though, or that split wouldn't make any sense."

Steve's eyebrows steeple. "So I'm not the first."

"Seems not. Erskine's science might have been a direct response to Hydra experiments he already knew were happening." Steve's not sure what to do with that information, but he knows it makes his heart rate ratchet high like he's gearing up for a fight. He opens his mouth, but is saved the trouble of further inquiry when Banner starts muttering to himself anew. "Two things are true at the same time..." he turns to Tony, abrupt. "Keaton is a conduit between two points in time. Two points existed in one point: Keaton. Two things became true at the same time."

"Then Keaton is a paradox," Tony says, tiredly. "Back at science broken, life meaningless."

"No. He only existed in two places _metaphysically_. Physically, he kept to the bounds of linear time. There was only one Keaton, but he could move between two points. He, singular, is a conduit between plurals."

That apparently made some kind of sense that Tony didn't want it to make. "A _person_ can't _be_ a _wormhole_."

Banner grins. "How sure are you of that, exactly?" 

"Don't you do this to me, Banner, you're supposed to be my ally. How did he not collapse on himself? A person can't be a wormhole. Agree with me."

"I don't think I can." 

"Get out of my house." 

Banner ignores this. "Either gravity isn't what we think it is either--"

"Don't you _dare_."

"--or, somehow, the energy we'd expect instead hit the bounds of some containment field and stabilized on its own. An intrinsic exchange -- got brought into his particle field? Became part of the mutation?"

"Particle field changes in virtue of containment," Tony mutters, interest sparking despite himself. "Then the field identity changes."

"That's a mutation." 

"Mutation as a form of self-regulation?"

"Makes the impossible possible." Banner points to Steve, who has completely lost the plot by now. "His energy disappeared, too. That's not possible."

"The _field itself_ changed to absorb it." 

"Which means he now has a new particle makeup, a new identity, like in any enhancement. It's invisible to us, but his cells remember."

Tony sets his eyes on Steve, gaze intense. "Holy shit."

Natasha looks swiftly from Banner to Steve, lips parting as comprehension dawns. "Whoa. Is he -- safe?"

Steve had been unaware there'd been a risk of danger. 

"I think so," Banner says -- but there's a thinness to it. "Or... I guess time will tell. Listen," he deflects swiftly, now speaking to Steve. "I think I have a solution... or a potential one, anyway. I need your blood, and I need your blood--" he points to Bucky -- "and I need what's left of Keaton's blood, though I'm not sure that'll help anymore." He searches his person for something before finding the stylus tucked behind his ear.

"You think the osmosis is total?" Tony mutters, still watching Steve with trepidation. "Does he have the ability?"

"No. He never underwent the process, the -- you know -- duress required to put the Enhancement into his cells like it would need to be to become communicable. I don't think he'd have the will to change any of us; not without..." He trails off; looks to Wanda, but she is too busy taking frantic notes to notice. "Well, I don't think so, anyway. And if his body remembers de-aging and aging up again _and_ the serum -- the old one -- may have helped pave the way for that process to enact itself, then it all applies to Barnes, too. There's gotta be a trigger in there somewhere."

"Lucky," Sam remarks quietly, staring at Steve just as hard.

"Lucky doesn't start to cover it," Banner admits.

"What the hell is going on?" Steve asks.

"You are Keaton," Banner says, gesturing at him, but then he shuts his eyes and waves an impatient hand. "I don't mean literally, I mean -- you have the hypothetical memory cells Barnes needs to start the process of turning him back. You have the superserum in your blood, and he has the superserum buried in his cell history, so it's all -- we give some of your blood to Barnes in the right amount and, based on the fact that you did, it's reasonable to think he should change back on his own."

"Reasonable, huh?"

"Reasonable's the best we can do at the best of times."

Bucky looks nervously between Banner and Steve; leans forward again, face creased with confusion. "I don't... have Steve's serum, though. Am I -- acquiring his?"

"No," Banner says, before Steve can stop him. "The fact that you're given a serum in the future, or were in the past, or whatever, counts enough -- at least, I think it does."

Bucky still doesn't follow. "You're saying you want to give me a serum... now."

"No," Bruce says, not registering the source of Bucky's confusion. "You've already received one in your past, in your cells' future. It'll activate on its own, it's just a matter of getting things in the right amount to make it happen."

"In my… past," Bucky says slowly. "You mean sometime between 1936 and now?"

Banner's eyes spark with sudden comprehension, and Steve rubs at his own, furious with himself. Banner looks to him; he nods and takes over. "Buck..." 

Bucky turns to him, face dropping with dread. " _More_ you didn't tell me." 

Steve takes a steadying breath and forces himself to meet Bucky's eye. "You -- are -- an Enhanced, Bucky. In the future. You were given a serum in the '40s, too, to make you... like me."

Bucky stares at him, hard. He seems to have lost words, but his eyes say enough.

"You don't have anything… metaphysical," Steve clarifies. "Super strength, accelerated healing, better reflexes, stronger memory… physical effects only. Same stuff I have."

"No," Bucky says hollowly. "Sorry, I don't believe it. I don't believe you. I don't look that much bigger."

"You were already six feet tall. Where else was there to go?"

" _Rogers._ Drop the act."

"There's no act, Bucky. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I haven't handled this well at all."

Bucky doesn't move for a long time, but when he does his gaze travels to Banner, slow as molasses. "So, what," he says, voice tattered to shreds. "I was given this _serum_ and then... tortured... almost to death, to make me like him? Isn't that what you said?"

Banner opens his mouth, then closes it again. "Yeah," he says, full with remorse. "That's probably what happened."

"And you're saying you want to do that to me again."

"No," Banner says hastily. "No. No torture, no pain to you at all, you'll be out like a light. All we have to do is give you an injection--"

"Like you gave yourself, huh?" Bucky cuts in, voice wavering with uncertainty. "The thing that almost killed you, that made you half-monster?"

Natasha looks to Banner at once, mouth opening, but he merely takes the remark; purses his lips. "This is different."

"Yeah? Well, that's fantastic. By the way, I got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you."

Steve moves to put a comforting hand at Bucky's arm, but he wrenches it furiously out of his reach, looking at him with an expression of betrayal. "No way," he grinds out. "Fuck your experiments. You're not doing a goddamn thing to me."

Except for the gentle whirring of tech in the background, the room falls into heavy silence.

Banner seems to be the only one willing to meet Bucky's eye. "It's the only way to change you back."

"Then to hell with it," Bucky says shortly. "I've been through enough hell without having that shit in my DNA on top of it. I won't risk more suffering."

Tony grunts and rubs at his face in exasperation. Bruce's shoulders drop in sympathy. "Barnes," he says softly. "I'm sorry to tell you this, but it's already in your DNA."

Bucky's eyebrows steeple. "Yeah? Something else done to me beyond my control, huh?"

"It's not fair, I know, but it's the best thing--"

"Best for _who_?" Bucky asks, voice rising; and Steve's stomach drops with the realization that Bucky's not just gonna be talked down from this. "It sure as shit ain't best for me!"

Steve brushes gentle fingers at his wrist; moves fast enough to connect, this time. "Buck."

"Don't fucking touch me," Bucky bites. Steve flinches deep in his gut. "You want my consent for another round of mutilation, _Doctor_? You don't have it. And if you claim to be better than the bastards who did this shit to me in the first place, you'll respect that and leave me the hell alone."

"Bucky," Steve says again, noted with desperation, but Bucky only pushes his chair back and spins toward the door. 

"I'm out of here," he says, "don't follow me." 

Then he turns the corner and disappears.

Steve gives himself time enough to let out a slow breath before rising to follow anyway. "I'll talk to him." He meets Banner's eye. "You need anything right now?"

"No," he says, waving Steve solemnly away as he bends over his tablet. "Find us when you can for samples."

Steve nods and leaves the room. 

He finds Bucky in a matter of seconds. He's pacing the hallway; rends his fingers in his hair, like he wishes he could pull it all out. 

Steve can't stand it. "Hey," he says gently, reaching for him; but Bucky sets upon him with wide eyes and backs away, nostrils flaring. 

"Why would you _want_ to do this to me?" Bucky asks him at once, haggard. 

"I don't," Steve assures him. "I don't, Bucky. But -- you're not understanding the situation correctly. Nothing is being done to you; it's already over."

"Oh, yeah? I just forget about the torture, then, is that it? I live just dandily without a fucking arm?"

Steve purses his lips and tries desperately to think clearly.

"Why would you send me back to that?" Bucky asks him.

"Because it's -- reality, Buck. Pretending otherwise won't help."

"Fuck that! I never want to know what happened to me. You can fucking keep it."

"But you -- already know it. It's 2018, Bucky. It already happened."

"Are you listening to me?" Bucky says, grating, high in pitch; but as the elevator doors open he gestures in relief, as though welcoming his salvation. "Thank God. Don't follow me, Rogers, I mean it this time."

Steve rolls his eyes and steps into the elevator after him anyway, despite Bucky's vocal protests. The next seconds pass with Steve steepling his eyebrows in benign resistance as he stands stalwart in the face of Bucky's feeble attempts to push him out the closing doors again.

"What the fuck!" Bucky says, hitting him in the shoulder in infuriation.

"Sorry," Steve says.

"No you're not."

"No, I'm not." He steps forward and hits the button for their usual floor. "We have to talk about this, Buck."

"No we don't. My decision's final. End of discussion."

"I'm sorry, Bucky. You're not gonna put off the issue until it goes away."

"Who says?"

"You know better. Come on."

" _You_ come on, Rogers. God, you're just gonna face this situation with a straight face?" He tries to shove him again. "Fucking fight already, would you? I want you to _fight_ , for once in your life, you gonna pass that up?"

"Stop asking. You don't want it."

"Yeah, I do! At least then I'd know who the fuck you are."

Steve turns to him, deadpan. "So you want to stay 82 years out of time with a guy you don't even know?"

Bucky seems to have nothing to say to that. He fumes in silence until the elevator doors open, then bursts forward and shoves his elbow into Steve's gut on his way to exit first.

Steve barely flinches; wanders out of elevator slowly, hands in his pockets, and watches Bucky pace a while. 

"Go have a cigarette," he suggests quietly.

"I don't want a fucking cigarette," Bucky grinds out. "I'm sick of cigarettes."

"Okay."

"I'm sick of _all_ of this."

"I know you are."

"I don't want any of it. I didn't ask for it."

"I know you didn't."

"But you're -- gonna force me to live it anyway." His voice has found quiet again, somehow, but it's not at all assuring; the way he's looking at Steve still manages to tear up his heart. "Isn't that right? You're gonna condemn me to all that suffering anyhow?"

"You already lived it, Bucky. It already happened."

"See, you keep saying that, but it seems to me that you are missing the fact that I am nineteen goddamn years old." He gestures wildly. "I go back, I live to be twenty-four, I get drafted into a fucking war, and then the enemy takes me prisoner? I get tortured to death? I become a _mutant_?"

"Don't say it like it's a dirty word."

"What the fuck about this sounds clean to you? I lose an _arm!_ Is that the torture? They cut off my arm to make me like you?"

Heartbreak shudders sudden in Steve's chest. "Bucky."

"It's in _my future_. I still have to go through that. Are you getting that?"

"But it's not, Bucky. You -- never left 1936. You are still there, right now. He's still out there, that Bucky of the past. _You're_ in 2018 -- a world where it's already done."

"I don't see that."

"But he does -- 2018 Bucky does. The Bucky you're supposed to be? He's clear of it. I won't lie and say it doesn't touch him, but it's not -- what you think it is. Not anymore. He survived it. He lives with it now."

"That's a goddamn comfort, ain't it?" 

"I'm just saying -- think of the guy who's already come out of it on the other side intact." 

"Such as it is!" 

"Such as it is," Steve agrees, nodding. "It's hard, but it's -- done. You live now, Bucky. Let him live." 

"Oh, who gives a fuck about him?"

Steve shrugs. "I do."

"Well, _fuck_ you, then."

Steve tries his best to bite down this inexplicable smile, but it surfaces anyway. 

Bucky looks rightfully affronted. "Okay. So you give a fuck? Tell me why I have to go through all that if you purport to care about me."

"There's no avoiding it, Bucky. It happened."

"Not to me it hasn't."

"Yes, it has. You have it wrong. It hasn't happened to _1936 Bucky._ "

"I'm him!"

"No, you're not. He's still back there. You're 2018 Bucky, wearing the wrong suit."

"I'm telling you I don't see that. I'm telling you it never happened _to me_." Bucky gestures at him, still furious. "Didn't you tell me if you could save me from it, you would? Well it's your lucky day, Rogers. Here's your chance."

Bucky holds Steve's eye, challenging, and Steve finally understands what he's really asking. 

"You really want to stay this way," he mutters.

"Yeah!" He looks incredulous that points taken this long to land. "Of course I do! You think I'm gonna let you people condemn me to -- _that world_ again, without a fight?" Bucky shakes his head, wide-eyed. "What part of it should I accept? The part where I'm hustling for money every day without time enough to even cut my own hair? The part where I survive three years as a prisoner of war and get tortured six ways from Sunday, _after_ a war I apparently never wanted to fight in the first place? You want me to suffer through people accusing me of cruelty for acts I'm not even really clear I committed? Or do you want me to be a man whose insides have been replaced with steel? Who can't live as himself for fear of being found out?" Bucky stares at him; waits for an answer without really waiting. "I won't, Rogers. I won't do any of it. Not now that I know better. You won't make me, or I swear you're as bad as them."

Steve is at a loss. He can only watch Bucky's shoulders, heaving with laboured breath. The silence digs his terror deeper; strives to bury them both.

"Are you going to put me through that or not?" Bucky asks, not willing to let it drop.

Steve swallows; can't find the words.

"Answer me!" he screams.

Steve manages only to let out a shuddering breath, desperate to fight against the lump in his throat. "I won't force you into anything," he says eventually.

It seems this is what Bucky wanted to hear; he deflates in one, anger melting off his face. "Well… alright then."

"But… you're still not understanding what the situation is. I am not sending you back to anything, Bucky, I'm bringing _my_ Bucky home." Steve gestures at him. "If you stay? What happens to him? Aren't we -- letting him die, without giving him a choice too?"

Bucky's brow irons out in surprise. It seems he hadn't thought of that.

"Those fifteen years, the man who survived them -- they disappear. And I do not like the idea of just leaving his life to languish just so you can pretend certain events never happened."

"But they didn't happen _to me._ "

"Tell that to your metal shoulder."

Bucky stares; another stumper. Steve takes a deep breath; feels heartened to see Bucky doing the same.

"So let's talk about this," Steve asks him. "With reason. Okay? That's what you always say to me when I'm feeling this helpless."

Bucky shakes his head; narrows his eyes. "I'm not sure I buy... the shoulder thing, Steve."

Steve nods. Denial. Familiar. "Okay."

"How is it I'm just realizing how crazy I've been to take your word? It's a... rotator cuff injury. Like I thought."

"Sure, Buck. And all this is a dream, isn't that right?"

There's a flicker at the corners of Bucky's eyes. Steve knows for sure now he's getting somewhere.

"I understand why you feel the way you do," he says. "You have the right to your choice. I won't deprive you of that. If you're sure you want to risk staying in this world, the way you are, then that's -- your call. But the Bucky of the present _will_ die, and I won't mask that from you."

"Don't say that, it's not on me."

"I'm just presenting the facts. You have a right to your choice, but you're also choosing for the man who actually went through all those things. You are saying that all the work he put into surviving it, the work he put into coming back from it, was all for nothing. You are electing to erase that, and him, from history, so that you can live a more convenient reality."

"Steve."

"Only inconvenient realities are all over the place in this world, too, Buck. You just haven't lived them yet. Are you really sure you want to stay?"

Bucky shakes his head and chews on his lip. "Unfair advantage."

"The facts give me an unfair advantage? Here they are as I understand them. We are _still_ fighting Hydra, eighty years later. They are willing to torture people to create militant superheroes, and we're not. We have only met _one_ among their numbers, and he has knocked us out of the fight for five days. You don't have the knowledge or the power to effectively fight back if you find yourself in a compromised situation -- but the other Bucky does. You want to see how long it takes you to learn back fifteen years of history and combat preparedness?"

"I -- box."

"Your older counterpart knows six different combat styles and can switch between them with effortless muscle memory. He has extensive weapons training. He's also enhanced by a serum that you don't have."

"Stop pretending the torture I apparently endured was to my so-called benefit, Rogers."

Steve gestures at himself. "Mine saved my life. I'd have died in the '40s if I hadn't taken it, and -- actually, Bucky, so would you."

"Fuck off," Bucky spits. "Keep your propagandist bullshit."

"I'm sorry, Bucky. It's nothing but truth."

"Why the hell should I believe you?"

Steve looks at him for longer than feels comfortable. "I guess… you don't have a good reason," he says. "Except that you don't have a better option."

Bucky's incredulity breaks slow over his face. "I see how it is."

"All I'm trying to say is that we need you, to do this fight properly. That's what you told me when I was small, and it was true then too." 

"Well, here's a hot tip for you, Rogers: I don't care what your goddamn 'fight' needs. I never have."

Steve thinks of the thousands of things he could say: about how clear it is that it's Bucky who's lying, this time; about how willingly he's backed Steve up again and again, to the point of starting fights for him just so Steve doesn't have to.

He decides to go another way.

"Then -- _I_ need you, Bucky." Steve shrugs, humble; sorry. "Does that count for anything?"

There's a long pause, drawing, cloying; then something in it seems to land. Bucky raises his head; he looks at Steve with poorly masked compassion. 

"Well, it's your lucky day, Rogers," he says slowly, and shrugs right back. "Because I'm right here."

"It's not the same. I miss _him,_ Buck."

A wry smile; a hazard in thin disguise. "You sure about that? You think I don't see the way you look at me?"

Steve shuts his eyes, full with remorse. "Please don't do that. You know better."

"Do I?"

"Well, you do now. I've liked seeing you, Bucky, I have. But you're not..." How dangerous would it be to admit he's been effectively stringing him along this whole time? "I look at you and I remember loving you. But that's not what you want from me."

Bucky flushes; shrugs a solitary shoulder to the back wall. "I don't see the difference."

"Yes you do."

His eyes look around the room; seem to find nothing to distract him. "But... we could build something, Steve." He looks up at him through his eyelashes. "Something good. Didn't you say that?"

"I said it because we've already built it."

"Then, case in point."

"No. You're _missing_ my point. I _started_ building it with you, Bucky, _in 1936_. If what you and me have is what you want in the end, it's not as simple as skipping the first fifteen years. We have to live it, both of us, from the beginning -- all of it. We can't get rid of the parts we don't like, and we sure as shit can't throw the whole thing away."

"You think you and me getting together under society's thumb is somehow worth something? Sounds real good, Rogers, can't wait."

"I can't say it's worth something _good_ , but it's worth something _to us._ We built it when society wanted us to stop, and that bound us in ways you won't comprehend. You can't erase those years and expect to start fresh. You're never gonna really get what you and me are about unless you've experienced it too."

"Sorry, Rogers, but that sounds like a big crock to me. I don't buy that any of this is worth it."

"I'm saying it's necessary. It's the sequence of things that leads us here; it's the events that have already… happened, Bucky, look." Steve steps swiftly toward him, driven forward by the urgency of sincerity; and maybe it's something on Steve's face or the abruptness of the gesture, but Bucky's face irons out from under anger's occupation. "After all we went through together -- the thirties; the war -- we got to a point where we saw each other on this side of the ice and something slid into place. I can't explain it. But the path we took to get to here has to start -- before the war. I was lost without you, without _that_ , Bucky, and you were…"

He doesn't want to say it; he can't. He touches his thumb to Bucky's jaw, and Bucky inhales hard but he doesn't pull away. "It's not _us_ , Bucky, if you stay like this. Not really. We… have this history together, and half of it is goddamn awful; but it's _ours_ , you understand? There's no hell or high water that could keep us apart, but you don't know that, not really; not in the way you should. Not in the way that brings us together, after..." Steve swallows; looks off to some corner of the ceiling, for a moment. "After we both get lost, for a while."

Bucky moves his head, expression pinching with regret. "So you're asking me to abandon a good life -- for _his_ sake?"

"I'm asking you to consider him at all," Steve says. "Doesn't he deserve to live?"

"Don't I?"

"But you're already living. You're still in 1936, Bucky, just the way you always were. _He_ doesn't get a second shot."

"So you want me to put my faith in--" But then his voice fails; his eyes flit to the side. Steve registers how hard he must be working to keep up his façade. "I'm just supposed to accept that what we've got is somehow _worth_ all the other shit?"

"That's not really my call. But if it was me? There's absolutely no part of it I would skip, Bucky. I'd want to live single day I got with you." He scans a thumb along his cheek; he can't help it. "I'm not sure you're considering just how much you'd be throwing away."

Bucky blinks hard, cuts his gaze away again, and Steve curls his fingers, soothing, around the back of his neck. It's another long moment while Steve tries to predict whether he's going to be drawn in or push him off, but at last Bucky reaches up and grips at Steve's wrist: an inviting gesture, one requesting he _stay_. "You're asking me to put an incredible amount of faith in things I've only witnessed for a day and a half, Rogers," he manages, voice coarse with uncertainty.

"You're so focused on the negatives of your experiences, and I understand why that is, Bucky, I do. But there are so many joys that are worth remembering, too. Your sisters, your Ma, your friends at work; all that is worth it. It's _life_. You gotta take it, lumps and all." Steve shakes his head. "Take it from the world's leading expert on shortcuts, Bucky: they backfire, pretty much every time. It's important that you remember all of it. It's important to remember how you survive."

"I don't want to have to survive anything. That's all I'm saying. If that makes me a coward, Steve, maybe I -- don't care. I want to _live_ , I just want to live a good life; don't you understand? I don't want to become that armless wretch who doesn't shave."

"You're no wretch, Bucky. You could never be. But you gotta -- okay, listen." Steve sighs; bows his head. "You've done an incredible job trusting me so far. I just need you to do it one more time. I just need you to commit. It sucks, not being sure, but you gotta know that I am. This is the right call -- for you, and for him. It's the call he would make. You're the strongest person I have ever met, Bucky, and I have absolutely no doubt that you can do this. You gotta live every goddamn opportunity we get to love each other, so that you have something to fight for when all that miserable shit goes down. I'm telling you, I swear it on my life, that it's how you get out of it. You need it. We both need it -- that life we had. So please, please don't throw it all away. Don't choose to forget the incredible things you've done just to get here at all. They bring us strength every day. Don't abandon that, Bucky, please."

Bucky blinks too hard, his eyes turn glassy; and Steve sets their foreheads together and breathes with him, to try to take some of that burden in. Bucky's as terrified as Steve's ever seen him. One hand moves to clench in his shirt, seemingly torn between bringing Steve in and pushing him back. "Not fair." 

"It's not fair. And those years aren't perfect. I don't pretend they are. We're both afraid and I'm always sick and you're just as sick with worry, but we--" A smile flickers on Steve's lips; he reaches out to rend his fingers in Bucky's hair, that beautiful hair. "We really loved each other, Bucky. We loved each other so much. I don't want to deprive you of that any more than I want to deprive the Bucky of the future of this. You deserve all of it -- the whole story, start to finish. And I really can't let you erase it without a fight, Buck. Not any part of it."

Bucky's hand is still at his wrist, fingers still clenching in his shirt; his lips have parted, eyes long since closed, breathing laboured but even. Steve can see he's coming around.

"I don't understand," he says, and swallows, "any of this."

"I know you don't. It's not fair to make you choose, but you have to, and I'm -- here, okay? I'm here on every side of this. You're stuck with me no matter what. And I'll keep showing up every step of the way, Bucky, I swear it. Every step. I will keep showing up for you. I will show up for you. Don't you fucking dare doubt it."

Bucky clenches his teeth. Steve moves back far enough to look at him; emotion flashes raw over his face and is subdued, as though Bucky's remembered how to tuck it away again. 

Then, unexpectedly, Bucky raises a shaking hand to Steve's face. His fingers seem to want to learn him without knowing how. "You're not the same," he mutters, lips sticking. Steve wonders if he meant to say it at all.

"No," he agrees; "neither are you." He stays still as he can and lets Bucky brush his thumb, quaking, over the line of his jaw. His eyes follow his fingers as they stroke at his sideburn; his breath still flurries out of him, bursting, as though terrified. 

"I -- miss you," Bucky murmurs. "That feels stupid."

Steve nods. "Then we're stupid."

Bucky pauses; takes in another shuddering breath. "I'm not sure how -- just, I--" He tightens his fist in Steve's shirt. "I think it has to be you."

"It -- me? What does?"

Bucky looks up at him, alight with adrenaline; then he pulls him abruptly in, closing the space between them. "Crowd my space, Rogers."

Steve blinks at him a second, searching; but then he realizes what he means; registers the certainty on Bucky's face. The bridge of his resolve collapses in an instant. 

"Are you sure?" Steve mutters, but he's already brushing a thumb at his lip.

Bucky swallows; he nods. "Give me something to look forward to, would you? Keep me going while I have to remember -- unless you don't _want_ \--"

But that's all Steve needs; he slides his nose alongside Bucky's and wastes no time in kissing him as soft as he can. 

The words Bucky had wanted to say die in his throat and it's a wounded sound; Steve pulls him closer. Bucky's forehead creases in tension, and there's a moment where he's not sure if this is going to go as expected -- until Bucky finally _moves_ , his lips parting; he knows what to do. The pads of his fingers scrape gentle over Steve's neck as they curl in and pull him down, and Steve goes where he wants him to; he's thankful for instruction. The heat of it grows, Bucky's breath staggers out through his nose; his whole form is shaking, fingers clenched in Steve's hair. 

Want spills within them. It crowds and it grows. Steve had meant to aim for control but he's forgotten it now, he's given over to it too entirely; and all it takes is a split second of getting carried away, for him to forget who he's kissing and swipe his tongue at his lip, before Bucky wrenches away from him, all at once, abrupt, jarring, hand flying to his mouth.

Steve blinks himself back to reality. It pulses in his vision, unwelcome. 

He splays his hands in confusion. "Hey," Steve says, searching Bucky's eyes. "Sorry."

Bucky stares at him like he's just realized something, or discovered it. "That's okay," he manages, weak.

"Are... _you_ okay?"

"Yeah," he says hastily. He swallows; licks his lips, eyes falling to Steve's mouth. "I, uh… I just never… you, uh... you..."

But rather than try to complete his thought, Bucky merely stands there a moment; then, swift as anything, he steps forward again and pulls Steve back in with both hands.

Bucky's mouth finds his fast, hot, and it's the kind of filthy reckless thing that lives deep in Steve's memory. It's more experimental, a bit of a question, but it's familiar, _God_ is it ever; it's making him weak, heart falling low in his gut. 

Steve blinks, his breath stalls in his chest; then his brain at last rushes in to catch up. Desire courses through him. He forces an exhale through his nose and firms his hands at Bucky's waist, at the back of his neck; he's trying again for something measured, but then Bucky opens to him even more, lets him deeper in, and it's no use after that with all they burn with want. 

Timeless silence wraps around them. Steve holds him in place and kisses him as deep as he wants. A sound leaves Bucky's throat, inexplicable, that Steve is _sure_ he's never heard before. 

It turns out that's all it takes to wake him up.

Steve furrows his brow; seems to remember who he is, who _Bucky_ is; remembers they can't be doing this for real. He makes a regretful sound of his own and steps back, hand at Bucky's jaw, eyes falling shut as he fights for composure. 

"We -- have to slow down," he says, coarsely.

He expects Bucky to argue, the way Steve knows he would, but Bucky only nods, fringe brushing at Steve's brow. "Okay."

Steve lets them both breathe, a minute. He raises his head; Bucky unclenches his fingers from Steve's shirt and then pauses, still shaking, to smooth out the cotton by his collar. 

"Sorry," he says, frowning gently.

"That's okay," Steve says. "We've done worse."

"Have we?"

"Super strength, and all that. Been a few ripping incidents."

"Careless."

"A little. Clothes are pretty cheap now. We do okay."

Bucky nods, like he understands, but his face looks less certain. He seems to have found some stability in his breath, though; that's a good sign. Steve disentangles fully, lets go of Bucky's neck; and Bucky surely looks dazed, Steve can see that, but on the other hand he doesn't look angry anymore. "You okay?" Steve asks him.

Bucky nods again, looking to the side. "Yeah. I just, um… I've never really…" He presses a fist to his ribs. "Felt this way before."

"Is that -- okay?"

"You're just, um… you're incredible?" A laugh coughs out of him; it sounds like it hurts. "You're _indecent,_ Rogers, you're -- but I mean -- Jesus. You're…" Suddenly he takes in a breath, involuntary; he gestures at his chest again. "I feel like I'm burning up in here. Like I can't breathe right, is this what asthma feels like?"

Steve smiles at him, sorry and glad. "No. It's a little different."

Bucky's eyes fall to his lips when he says it, then immediately close. He moves his face away, apparently overcome just by memory. "Oh my God."

"Hey. Don't think about it."

"Your mouth?" he says, automatic; then he winces again, throwing a hand over his eyes. "Oh my God!"

"Bucky," Steve says, grinning despite himself. 

"The hell did I tell you to do that for? What did I expect was gonna happen, I'd stumble on a boner cure?"

"Buck, there's -- time for all this. We get to do this all the time."

"Yeah! Fuck! Jesus! Don't tempt me!" 

"You wanna skip the first five years of it?" Steve shakes his head. "Bucky, I swear, it's so good. You gotta live it."

"I'm having a different crisis right now, Rogers, can we take them one at a time?"

"Doesn't that feeling tell you something?"

"I didn't mean for this to convince _me_."

Steve shrugs, knowing exactly what he means. "Shortcuts backfire. I told you." 

"Guess I believe you now!"

Steve smiles, self-satisfied. Bucky rolls his eyes, running his fingers furiously through his hair; but then he seems to find calm, if one implemented by clenching his hands into fists. "So that's the situation, huh? I choose between five years of this and living through hell, or get none of the above?"

Steve nods. "That's about the situation, Buck. Yeah."

"Bad choice."

"Yeah. I know it is."

Steve stands apart, watching Bucky think. He chews on his lip and doesn't speak for a long time.

Steve can't stand to stay silent anymore. He shoves his hands in his pockets and takes a deep breath. "If it were me, Bucky, the choice would be clear. You go back, and you get this in every respect, you know? The person you feel like you are right now gets to start this with me from the beginning, and that's -- a real incredible thing, Bucky. And the Bucky of the present gets to live this, too. That's good. In this goddamned life, we gotta take the good when it comes."

Bucky shakes his head, but it's lost the urgency it had before. "You'd really give him back all those memories?" Bucky gestures at his arm. "Everything? The torture, the -- forgetting? Just so you can have him back?"

"The thing of it is, Buck -- it's not about that. It's more that, after everything he didn't choose, I will never again deprive him of the dignity of his choice." Steve shrugs sadly. "Just like I'm not doing with you. It's -- I really hope you make the right decision here, because if you fall one way on this, I really have failed him. The Bucky who's lived through all that isn't making the decision to forget; you're making it for him. And that strikes me as wrong as is anything else that's happened to him against his will."

This resonates with him, Steve can see. Bucky stares at him, seriousness restored. "I'm just -- I'm fucking terrified," he says, voice cracking into a whisper halfway through. "Of all of it."

"I know you are. But I'm -- here, alright? I'm here with you, on both sides of this. I swear I'll show up for you, Bucky, every time. You don't have to do any of it alone."

Bucky breathes this in; finds some peace with it. And when he finally looks at Steve again, his eyes are clear, regretful, but decisive. "Alright," he says, and shuffles his feet. "But you gotta make out with me, like, a lot when I get back."

Steve fills with relief; feels the grin spreads wide, helpless on his face. "I'll do a lot more than that, Buck. You can take my word."

Bucky fights to crush the smile budding on his face, too, despite everything. "Boy," he mutters, looking widely around the room. "This is sure some dream I'm having, huh, Rogers?"

Steve studies those eyes, wide and profound; and he pulls him into the fullest hug he knows how to give. "Yeah, Buck," he whispers against his neck. "Bet you've never had a time travel dream like this before."

"Definitely not." Bucky shuffles blushingly toward the elevator when Steve nods in its direction. "Here's hoping I never have one again."

Steve laughs. "As bad as that?"

"It wasn't all bad."

Steve hits the button to call the lift and tries not to let his gaze linger as Bucky, just a slight too small, shoves his hands humbly into his pockets and chews on his lip. 

"Steve?" he asks the wall, after a while.

"Yeah?"

"You sure you -- got a thing for me already, or whatever, back in '36?" Those blue eyes again. "Like you're -- you're pretty sure, right?"

Steve smiles and turns toward the elevator. "You remember that time you walked in on me jerking off in front of my sketchbook and decided I was getting off on my own talent? You about busted a gut laughing with how arrogant you thought I was, tried to accuse me of never having a sexual thought until my art got good enough, and even then it was only because I was in love with myself..."

Bucky grins. "Sure. I remember that."

Steve rolls his head pointedly in Bucky's direction. "How many times I draw you that year, you remember offhand?"

He nods and nods, eyes closed, cheeks round with joy. "Okay then," he says, and licks at his lips. "Message received."

"Good."

"You're only in love with yourself. Got it."

Steve rolls his eyes. "Yeah, _that's_ the takeaway here."

"I gotta dress up as you to make time with you, then? That what you're saying?"

"Yeah, actually, that's exactly what I'm saying. Keep pictures. Tell me where you're gonna hide 'em so I can dig them up in the future."

"Your trousers are gonna hit me mid-calf. Boys at work will never let me live, but if that's what I gotta do..."

"It'll be a great look for you, Buck. I'll be unable to resist."

And as they step into the elevator, nudging stupidly at each other with with their elbows, Steve sees the way the smile keeps hitching high on Bucky's face and can't help but wonder if something good, somehow, might've come out of this after all.

  


  


* * *

  


  


Steve is exhausted, but they have to press on. He leans over the table and tries to wrap his head around this. "Okay. Run me through it one more time. Why didn't this work?"

Banner sighs; everyone does. They all look just as run down as Steve feels. "Well," Banner says, scrolling through his tablet, "it could be we've been met with the problem of will again. The mutation might need the agency of an Enhanced person behind it to work."

"So, what, you need me to think real hard or something?"

Banner shakes his head. "It doesn't work like that." They'd spent nearly an hour going over what the hell it means for Steve's cells to remember having been made young and back again without it meaning he's gained new abilities, but Steve's still foggy as hell on the details. "I think it mostly means that your synthesized blood might still work. We just have to figure it out how to activate it somehow."

"So we're back where we were."

"Yes and no... Before, we didn't even have an activation catalyst, so we are at least that much further ahead."

Steve sighs and pushes himself upright again. "Alright. How long until Bucky wakes up?"

"Probably a couple hours. We gave him a lot of sedative just in case..."

An ominous pause turns slowly into dreading silence. Sam blinks hard, off and away; Wanda stares at him, stoic. Even Natasha seems to purse her lips: a rare tell.

"Just in case," Steve says, foreboding, " _what?_ "

Banner looks to Sam and Natasha; says nothing. "I was against this," Natasha says quickly.

"You were _not_ , stop saying that," Sam bites. " _I_ was against this."

"Every experiment carries risk," Banner says weakly.

"Did you tell _Bucky_ about this so-called 'risk'?" Steve hisses.

"Of course not," Natasha says. "We told him he was going to be fine."

He shakes his head, anger pounding in him. "What _risk,_ exactly, are we talking about?"

"Oh," Banner says, "the usual things you might expect when injecting a foreign body into, you know, a foreign body."

Steve waits, but nobody seems willing to follow up. "Like anomalies in the time conversion?" he guesses. "Like possible deformation, particularly given Bucky's physical abnormalities? Plus there's no telling how the serum might react to this, right, since his strain isn't the exact same as mine, so there's no _telling_ what kind of chemical reaction might result. Right?"

"That starts to cover it," Bruce agrees, wincing.

"What else? Additional mutation? Coma? Death?"

"Disappearance in time..."

Steve stares at him. Banner raises his hands in defense. "Hey, I'm just a guest here. I just did what everyone else told me to."

He looks between all of them, mute with anger. "Where the hell do you get off."

"Steve," Natasha says, but he waves her to silence.

"Natasha, I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear your bullshit excuses for why this, or anything else during this mission, was hidden from me. We're supposed to be a team, remember? We're supposed to work through this all together. Now how the hell am I supposed to understand what's happening to Bucky if you're all wilfully keeping secrets from me about his treatment?" Steve gestures to the side, furious. "I may not be the leader of the Avengers anymore, and I understand that none of you answer to me in matters of business. But in matters of _Bucky_? Absolutely, I expect it. You owed me the truth." 

"Steve," Sam says, eyelids flickering.

"I'm not finished. This is not acceptable. Keeping secrets about Keaton was one thing, but keeping secrets about what _we_ are doing to Bucky -- what _I convinced him to do_ \-- is a betrayal. Not only to him, but to me, too, I'm not going to stand here and pretend anything else. You all have something to answer for here, and believe me when I tell you that we are not moving forward with this until we have a sane, ethically conscious plan for how Bucky is not going to fucking _die_ in the middle of trying to fix what he never asked for!"

Four faces blink back at him, but none of them looking remotely repentant. Banner, inexplicably, even seems to be smiling.

"Did any of you hear a word I said?" Steve asks them, halfway shouting; but when Natasha reaches and physically moves his face toward the doorway, he lets it happen.

There stands Bucky, the 2018 version: awake, leaning in with his good side, hand sweeping the hair away from his face. His beard's grown full and he looks like he hasn't slept for days, but Steve would swear there's a smile in his eyes.

"You got a speech for me, too, Rogers?" he says -- voice griseled but wholly his own.

Steve barely hears it for the force of the relief pounding through him. "Uh... not unless you want one."

"Yeah? You got one queued up?"

"As a matter of fact, it's called, 'Don't Ever Do That to Me Again.'"

"Hey, you started this."

"You tried to track down Keaton -- _alone_?"

Bucky seems to jolt; looks to the floor. The last thing Steve wants is for him to be in pain right now. 

So he lets it drop; steps forward, takes Bucky's face in both hands -- warm and unhesitating. "Hey," Steve says, scanning his thumbs over those stubble-ridden cheeks. Bucky grabs at his wrist in that familiar way, palm soft, to keep him there. "Fight later, okay?"

Bucky nods, he swallows at the floor; then he raises his head and looks askance to the others. "Hey," he gravels, nodding at them.

"Hey," they crow in unison.

"Thanks."

"No problem," they all reply.

Then Bucky turns back to Steve, fighting that inexplicable smile. "There's, uh… something I'm owed, Rogers."

"Oh? And what's that?"

"Seem to remember you promising something about a makeout."

Steve's gut swoops with unexpected joy, wild and incapacitating. He presses his forehead against Bucky's and takes in the smell of him: shampoo and the distant spice of old deodorant. "Oh, I'll do a lot more than that," he mutters, and nudges Bucky's feet backwards with his own, one at a time.

"Is that right?" Bucky mutters. "Big talk, there, Rogers, from someone who's only in love with himself."

It's a thousand times better to hear Bucky say it, to hear _his_ Bucky say it; to know, despite everything, that Steve never lost him for a second. "God, I missed you so much," he says, brushing their lips together.

"Yeah, Rogers," Bucky says, "I missed you too" -- and then Steve's being kissed within an inch of his life and they stumble into bedroom without even looking up.

  


  


  


  


  


  


### epilogue.

  


It's been more than two weeks since they've seen each other, but Steve's still not surprised to see Bucky on the other side of the door.

He doesn't say anything at first, and he doesn't need to; he looks -- _wonderfully_ young. His hair is short, his face shaven. He's got a fading bruise from what must be a boxing match; Steve had forgotten it.

There are no lines at the corners of his eyes.

Bucky looks down at Steve with a raised chin and heavy-lidded eyes; defensive, Steve knows. His hands are shoved in his pockets, breath slow and steady. It's a practiced calm, something that sits barely on the other side of not knowing what to do. Steve's seen it before, a hundred times -- a detour into control, when he starts to feel helpless.

Steve holds at the door handle and takes in a deep breath. 

"Hi, Bucky."

"Hey, Steve." It grinds out of his throat; then silence falls anew.

It's one of the first days of the year that marks the changing season; the blistering heat of August has long since died, replaced by something warm and easy, full with colour. Steve only wants to stand in it, to live just here; to breathe it all in.

"How are you?" he asks instead, when Bucky only looks at the ground.

Bucky opens his mouth, but closes it again. "I'm good," he manages.

"Good," says Steve.

"How are you?" He looks up, brow creasing with uncertainty. "Are you, uh -- okay? You're good? You're not dying just now?"

"Not just now," Steve replies, smile slight. "I dunno what it is, Buck, but these days I feel like I'm gonna live forever."

Bucky stares at this. Steve stares, too. Whatever's gotten into Bucky buzzes between them, brutal.

"I got something I want to talk about," he grinds out. It's frantic and awful and breaks through his calm. "About why I haven't been by. I've been having these -- dreams."

"Yeah," Steve says, nodding, heart beating suddenly hard. "Me too. _Weird_ dreams." 

"Yeah," Bucky says, dry. 

"Yeah. Okay. We should... talk." He gestures inside. "You want to come in?"

Bucky stares at him, searching, but does not move.

"I've been having," Steve says, just to say _something_ , "yeah, all kinds of weird dreams." He feels his breath getting short and so forces the tension out of him; brings himself to a place of calm, for once in his life. "Well, maybe just the one, but it was -- I kinda didn't want to see you either. I'd hoped time… well, I hope you're not angry with me."

"No," Bucky says, somehow softened in the time it took Steve to speak. "No, Rogers, I'm not mad at you. But I don't want to come in. I think we should -- walk, Rogers, I think we should take a walk and be outside, or -- get out of here, anyway."

"Okay," Steve says, breathless and agreeable, and lifts a jacket off the stand by the door. "Ma, it's Bucky. We're gonna -- go out for a bit."

"Oh, _good,_ " Sarah says. "I was worried since he hadn't come by."

"We -- needed some time, I think, it's hard to explain. But he's here now and we're going to patch things up, or -- I hope so, anyhow. Save me some food, alright?"

"Take your time, love," Sarah says; and from the way Bucky smiles, distant and a little sad, Steve knows she must be standing behind him, waving with the towel she'd been using to dry dishes.

They turn in unison and walk for a while, not looking at each other; not speaking. Their elbows brush every now and again: soft, companionable. 

Steve thinks of the walk to the Smithsonian he and Bucky never took. He wonders if there's anything Bucky's thinking of.

"I think one of us has to start," Steve says at last, half-smiling, looking at his feet.

Bucky nods at the ground. "I, uh… I think it has to be you, Rogers." He swallows and looks at him. "It's always you, isn't it?"

"You're the one who came to my door, pal."

He shrugs. "I was a hair's breadth from losing my goddamn mind if I didn't."

"I know what you mean."

"I couldn't see you, either." His tone is uncharacteristically honest. "I needed... time, too, I guess. I, uh... I hope you weren't looking for me, Rogers."

The truth of it is that ever since Steve had the dream, he's been trying to have it again; trying to learn what he could from it, though he's sure it couldn't be real. 

He's not sure he can admit to being so foolish. "No," he says. "I, uh. I haven't… I haven't been."

"Good."

Steve looks to the sky. "I did miss you though."

"Yeah," Bucky says, sounding relieved. "I missed you too, Rogers, more than you--" He shakes his head again. "I was being stupid."

The tension between them shatters, all at once. Steve knows what to do with this; relief fills his lungs. "Well if you weren't being stupid, I would've been stupid, so it's good that it falls on you in my humble opinion."

"What, so your perfect reputation can't be tarnished?"

"Not everyone can be as dumb as you, Buck, or society wouldn't function."

Bucky smiles into the autumn air and kicks his feet in front of him, the way he does when he's feeling glad. "Then I'm stupid," he says, relieved again. "That's all. I'm just being stupid."

"I keep telling you."

"I -- I think I spend a lot of time being stupid."

Steve frowns at him. "Well, hang on."

"Let me talk a minute," Bucky says, all in a rush; he's found some courage and intends to use it. "Let me be dumb. I've been having these," Bucky swallows, "dreams, Steve, like you, or maybe not, I can never quite tell when you're playing with me and when you're -- but they've stopped, now, or maybe there was just the one, but…" Bucky looks at him, suddenly frantic. "Do you ever think sometimes how dreams can show us what we're not seeing?"

"Sometimes."

"I think about that a lot."

Steve nods, but then Bucky's courage falters; his shoulders round again, and they walk in silence a while longer.

The sun dips lower. Bucky's face always looks its best in the orange hues of impending night.

"What did you dream about?" Steve asks at last, soft as the sky.

"I dunno," Bucky says. One heel scrapes against the pavement, and then the other. "You were there. You were -- big, Rogers. Broad-shouldered, six-foot-two. Bigger than me."

Steve's heart pounds so hard, so sudden, that he sets a hand over it to try to calm it down. "You don't say."

"And you were -- when I woke up, in the dream I mean, you were there, all six feet of you, telling me that -- you'd already dreamed this. That this already happened to you. And that I -- didn't belong there, or that I wasn't supposed to be there."

"Huh."

"But it was -- you were--" Sound breaks in his throat. "You kept telling me I didn't belong, and then you would find a way to make me believe I _did_ belong, the way you do in -- in reality. I ever tell you that, Rogers?" There's a thrill of a laugh in it that might just as well be panic. "That I feel good with you? That I feel safe and right and like I can do anything?"

"Not in so many words."

"That's because I'm stupid. I've been stupid for a long time."

"Bucky, don't, I mean it."

"The way you were in these dreams, Steve. You were -- _incredible_. You were you, only big and more serious, somehow, I didn't think that was possible but you did it. And you -- and I wanted--" He swallows; gives that parched sound again. "You made me _feel_ \-- but I couldn't figure it out. For the longest time, I couldn't get it together. And you said -- in the dream, you, the big one, told me that I -- could never get it right before, either; that it was you, that it had to be you, that you were the one to figure things out. Because God knows I could never figure anything out, Rogers. Not me. It's never me."

Bucky stops walking, finally. He turns to look at Steve, terror etched on every inch of his face. He's convinced he's about to be ruined, Steve can see that much, but wasn't he the one to show up at Steve's door?

Steve watches Bucky carefully; tries to calm him down. "It's okay," he says, because it is, Steve's sure of it, and maybe this is what Bucky's been talking about -- how Steve is sure when Bucky's not. Steve's run out of things to say besides that, though, so he reaches forward and grabs at Bucky's wrist and hopes it says enough.

"You," Bucky says, "you told me -- _he_ told me about how--" A coughing laugh, planted in nervousness. Bucky looks off and into the sky and grabs at Steve's forearm for ground. "You told me about how we need this, you and me, to survive, to live through what's coming. And maybe me being so stupid -- maybe me being this much of an idiot -- maybe it's just delaying the inevitable because you… _he said_ that you feel the same things. That I do." Bucky swallows like he's desperate for air. "And that it's okay, with you and me, and more than that it's _good_ , and -- are you understanding me?"

All Steve can see is Bucky set against swaths of red: the sun setting low, colour cut by warehouse lines.

"I think so," Steve says, but it grinds out of his throat in a whisper.

"Well," Bucky says, searching his face, almost beseeching, "maybe he told me that you grab me a year from now and show me the things I need to figure out. Maybe he told me about how you just make it _happen_ , Rogers, because of the the bracing, impossible person you are. And maybe I'm -- just asking you to just do it now instead." He hitches in a breath, desperate and terrified, and swallows around clenched teeth. "Maybe I need for you to do it now, so I know I'm not losing my mind, because of all the things I -- _damnit_ , Steve, I -- you just make me so _goddamn_ \--"

But Steve never finds out what he is because he's grabbed Bucky by the lapels and propelled himself forward with the full force of momentum. Bucky's stepping backward with staggered breath, and he really _can't_ do this, Steve can see: he's got Bucky's back against the wall in amidst abandoned warehouses on a Sunday and Bucky's gone completely rigid, as though unsure whether he's about to be kissed or hit. He needs Steve to let him know, to bring him out of this, but the problem is that Steve's scared, too; his heart's beating too fast and he feels lightheaded, like the world's gone dim outside the two of them.

Steve pulls at the collar of Bucky's jacket hard enough that his neck cranes down, and that's better, then: Bucky within range. "Is this what you want?" Steve asks him, breath against his lips; but his voice is full of cracks. His fingers are tensed too tight in his lapels, slippery with sweat, knuckles aching to unbend.

Bucky's shaking so hard tremors feel to be coursing through him in waves. It's terrifying and intoxicating; Steve's never quite wanted him this way. He'd been braver in that dream, led into certainty by Bucky's own, but now that they're threatening to come apart he feels it differently; desire roils hard enough in him to make him shy. 

The seconds roll by and there's a wheeze out of Bucky's chest; then, quivering, like it's taking all he has, he cups at the back of Steve's neck and _holds_ : an invitation to stay.

"I want this," Bucky mutters, but then he runs out of courage.

Steve knows what he means. 

He kisses him at once, before he changes his mind.

The moment hangs. Bucky stands, made motionless by fear, and Steve inhales through his nose; finds it in him to move his lips. It's hesitant and inexpert; he's never done this before, except for the once. He tries to remember how the Bucky of the future had kissed him, or the Bucky from his dream -- tries to get this Bucky to open up, here on his toes where he's standing before him.

Whatever he's doing, it seems to work. Bucky's breath breaks haggard from his throat and his thumb extends high behind Steve's ear. All of a sudden Steve is held in place and he _likes_ that, _God_ ; the shock of it washes over him like an encroaching wave. He shudders and collapses back down on his heels, and Bucky leans forward -- takes initiative for himself, kissing him with sudden conviction, with wholeness, with so much _hunger_ that it shocks him.

Steve clenches his hands at whatever part of Bucky they can reach and he _holds_ ; Bucky holds the same. Two weeks of thinking they were insane was worth it if it led to this, if it means he gets Bucky: _his_ Bucky, too, the one that he wants, this one who gives it all over. They still shake with fear but the edge wears away; Bucky's found his feet again; he spins Steve around until it's his back at the wall and presses his thigh against him and all at once it's so much, too much; Steve has to _breathe._

"Hell," he says, chest heaving. He locks eyes with Bucky, but closes them at once to see him so close, so intense. "Wow. Okay."

"You alright?" Bucky mutters, voice low.

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, Buck. It's just -- _hell._ Holy, sweet hell." He forces his eyes open; decides he wants to read his face after all. "For a guy who allegedly couldn't do this, you're, uh... sure managing okay."

Bucky's smile is so fleeting that Steve doesn't understand it, but then he swallows audibly; he must be overwhelmed. "Shut up, Rogers," he says, and sounds utterly ruined.

Steve reaches up a hand and runs his fingers through Bucky's hair, the way he's always wanted to. He clenches his fingers in and holds them tight against his scalp and Bucky's eyes flicker closed, like he's wanted nothing more. "You're okay, Bucky. I…"

He isn't sure what he meant to say, but he loses it regardless when warmth unfurls sudden in his gut. Bucky's shifted, leaned more of his weight against him, and Steve's mouth falls open with all that he wants.

Bucky bends, his thumbs learn Steve's face; he ghosts his lips softly over Steve's. " _You're okay,_ " he repeats solemnly. "I know I'm okay. The real question is, are _you_ okay?"

"I'm more than okay, Buck."

"Because you're looking a little--"

He leans in again, a smile flashing fast over his lips; and Steve offers a quailing noise, high in his throat, hips shifting against his thigh.

Another hard swallow from Bucky. Steve can feel him relaxing, bit by bit, but his voice still sounds shredded as he moves his lips along Steve's jaw. "So you -- like this," he asks.

"Bucky," Steve says, tone guttural and worn. "You gotta believe me. I have never wanted anything more in my life."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Sure?"

"'Course I'm sure, are you conscious?"

He grins in _full,_ that time, and Steve moves a hand to it to feel it under his fingers. 

"Do you want to stop?" Bucky asks him, nosing at his ear.

Steve laughs, hollow, dry and ironic. "No," he says. "I don't want to stop, Bucky."

"Are you--" He swallows, nervous again, and Steve strokes his hands long against Bucky's back. "Are you _sure_ , Rogers? Because I think I might -- _Steve,_ I think I want to drag you down with me, here, and you should know--"

It's ridiculous; he's being absurd. Steve moves his face and finds his lips, and swallows the rest right down. "If anyone's dragging anyone," Steve tells him, holding him firm so he understands, "I'm dragging _you_ down with _me_ , here, pal. You hearing me?" Bucky blinks at him, flushed; Steve smiles at him, horribly fond. "Now are you gonna put up with it, or do you want a piece of my mind?"

Then finally, at _last_ , laughter cracks out of him like he can't help but give it; and he kisses Steve, whole, and then sets his head down. "I get the impression I don't get a fucking choice," he mutters, flush against his lips.

And Steve tells him, "You're damn right you don't;" and in the end that works just fine.

  


  


  



End file.
